The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell by Paula Quinn Read Free Book Online

outdoors alone while the sun rose?
    “Is the duke in attendance?” Essex asked, barely looking at her. “We had hoped to
     offer him our well wishes on his success with the union.”
    “Alas,” her father said, turning a miserable glance at his wife, “he has been called
     away to Roxburgh.”
    “Unfortunate,” Essex said. The frost in his eyes hardened his quick smile. “I would
     give my accolades to the Earl of Seafield then, as he is the duke’s right hand.”
    “Again—” Her father cringed to his bones at the sound of her mother’s slight groan.
     Poor man, Amelia thought. Her mother was never going to stop complaining about this
     later. “I regret that he has been called back to Banffshire to repair the roof of
     his wedding chamber.”
    Essex raised a golden brow. “Ah yes, I had heard rumor that the earl was to be betrothed.”
    “That he is,” her father informed him. “To the most beautiful lady here, in fact.”
    Lord Essex slanted his gaze to her before her father identified her as the bride and
     set Amelia’s heart to racing. She could barely breathe watching those diamond-hard
     eyes grow warm on her. Tonight he wore a powdered periwig that gave him a more noble
     appearance than an ethereal one. Shadows danced across the chiseled angles of his
     sun-bronzed face and his heavy brow, adding depth to his smoky blue eyes.
    His clothes were even finer than Amelia had first thought in the garden. He wore a
     scarlet embroidered justacorps with a matching bow tied beneath his aristocratic chin.
     The cuffs of his poet’s shirt beneath were crisp and white as if rarely worn. He wore
     hose over his breeches, boasting strong, muscular calves. His shoes were polished
     and bowed, as was the fashion.
    He moved more like a panther than a peacock, though; agile, quiet, and dangerous.
     Yet he’d walked among them all day, unnoticed. Discreet.
    He came to stand directly in front of her table and angled his face to her. After
     an endless moment of silence and a frantic prayer from Amelia that he wasn’t deciding
     how best to tell her father of her nightly romp, the husky dip of his voice fell across
     the hall. “Am I to assume this is the prize the earl has won?”
    Amelia didn’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted at being called such a thing.
     While she was trying to decide, something cool and wet slithered down her bodice.
     She looked down to find her soup-soaked curl dripping over her breast, staining the
     fine fabric of her gown.
    Oh, damnation, could this evening get any worse?

Chapter Five
    C ould his fortune get any better? Edmund’s gaze lingered over the lass rubbing her
     palm over her bosom. This was the lass for whom they’d come. The slumbering angel
     from the garden who’d lingered in his thoughts all day was the duke’s niece, and with
     both her uncle and her future husband gone—the duke no doubt procuring the third signature—she
     was free for the taking.
    Almost free.
    “Ye assume correctly, Lord Essex,” Baron Selkirk said, moving closer to his daughter.
     “May I present my wife, Lady Selkirk, and my daughter Lady Amelia Bell.”
    Amelia. Edmund said her name over and over in his head. Beautiful, just like her.
    Thankfully, he wasn’t moved by pretty faces. He was here for a purpose. Nothing had
     changed. Nothing would sway him from his plans, not when it came to Scotland, not
     for the land that had breathed new life into him as a boy. Miss Bell was the loveliest
     lass he’d ever beheld, but Scotland held ownership of his heart.
    Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t charm her witless tonight. Since the duke and
     the chancellor were both absent, Edmund could take his time with the plan, enjoy it…her,
     a little. If he played this right, he wouldn’t have to force her to go with him and
     she might not hate him so much in the morning. She piqued his interest by sleeping
     in the open in her nightdress, barefoot and vulnerable beneath the