The Marriage Trap by Elizabeth Thornton Read Free Book Online Page A

satin evening bag he held in his hand. On their way up the stairs, he'd taken a quick look inside and was astonished to discover that it was stuffed with banknotes. It led his mind to make all sorts of conjectures about the lady.
    “Good,” he said. “No last names. I like that.”
    She was waiting to see what he going to do with her bag. Biting down on a smile, he tossed it carelessly on the armchair by the fire. If she wanted it, she would have to ask him to move.
    Evidently, she was too canny to betray herself. No mention of the bag. She simply turned, walked to the window overlooking the courtyard, and looked out. As he poured himself a neat brandy, his mind began to speculate.
    He was sure of one thing. She was no ordinary demirep, for sale to the highest bidder. No ordinary demirep made the kind of money she had in her bag. Moreover, this woman had quality, style, confidence. He could see her presiding in a lady's drawing room. On the other hand, no lady of quality would risk her reputation by showing her face in the Palais Royal.
    She'd worn a mask, but so did many ladies, not so much to conceal their identity, but as an accessory, to add an air of mystery.
    Who was she, and what was she?
    He thought Ash must be right, that she was the mistress of some wealthy English gentleman who had taken her to Paris to see the sights. That would account for the large sum of money in her bag. Maybe she was keeping it for her protector and they'd become separated. If that was the case, her protector should have known better than to leave her alone in such a place and at such an hour. He was tempting some stray gentleman, such as himself, to make the lady a better offer.
    It was a reasonable explanation, but it did not satisfy him. Which was she, a lady of quality or a rich man's mistress? He knew which one he wanted her to be.
    When he reached for the decanter to top up his brandy, he winced. That trifling wound he'd taken earlier that evening in the duel outside Tortoni's was beginning to sting like blazes. It shouldn't have happened. He'd drawn the first blood and relaxed his guard. He should have known better. Frenchmen took their dueling seriously. That's why they were so good at it. A little blood didn't put them off. So though they were both scratched, the duel had continued till he'd wrested his opponent's sword away from him.
    She spoke to him over her shoulder. “What on earth is going on down there?”
    He joined her at the window and looked out. All was pandemonium in the courtyard below. Groups of men were fighting. Red-coated soldiers were dragging people away. Gendarmes were buzzing around like angry hornets.
    “The guards,” he said, “have been called out to help the gendarmes keep order.”
    “They're clubbing people.”
    “That's one way of keeping order.”
    Her hair was loose upon her shoulders, kept off her face by silver combs. She was still wearing her mask, so her eyes were in shadow. The temptation to touch and take had to be severely resisted. He wasn't a callow youth like the boy soldier who had molested her. He knew the value of patience.
    Looking up at him, she said, “How long is this likely to go on?”
    “An hour. Maybe less. Does it matter?”
    Her eyes were huge and dark behind her mask, so he wasn't sure whether he was caught in
her
stare or she was caught in
his
. She reminded him of someone—he couldn't think who—but it was someone from the past, someone he had once liked and admired. He supposed he was transferring some of the softer feelings he'd felt for the woman he could not remember to the woman who was looking up at him with uncertain eyes.
    He wanted to see her without her mask and wondered what she would do if he reached out to take it. The mask wasn't the only thing he wanted to take from her.
    He must have betrayed what he was thinking, for her breasts began to rise and fall and her breathing quickened.
    “It matters,” she said. “I was supposed to meet my husband in