The Temptation of Your Touch by Teresa Medeiros Read Free Book Online Page A

no sympathy for those who fell prey to temptations of the flesh. She had probably never experienced even the most harmless of them.
    “What manner of scandal?” he asked, although he could probably guess.
    “At a fete given in her honor on her eighteenth birthday, she was caught in a compromising position with a young man. The artist of this very portrait, I believe.” The housekeeper shrugged. “I don’t hail from Cadgwyck so I wasn’t privy to all the sordid details. All I know is that her brother was rumored to have shot and killed the young man without even the benefit of a duel. Her father suffered an apoplexy and went mad with grief. The brother was carted off to prison—”
    “Prison?” Max interrupted, engaged against his will by the lurid tale. “I thought murder was a hanging offense.”
    “The Cadgwyck name was still a powerful influence in these parts, so the young man managed to escape the gallows and was deported to Australia. Apparently, her father had made some ill-advised investments prior to all this. Scenting blood in the water, the creditors descended and the family lost everything—their fortune, their good name . . . even this house, which had been in Cadgwyck hands since the original castle was built five centuries ago.”
    Max returned his gaze to the portrait. “What became of her?”
    Mrs. Spencer shrugged, as if the fate of one foolish girl was of little to no import to her. “What wasthere left for her to do after bringing ruin upon everyone she loved? On the night before they were to vacate the premises, she flung herself over the cliff and into the sea.”
    Since losing Clarinda to Ash, Max had grown accustomed to the dull, heavy ache in his heart. The piercing pang he felt in that moment caught him off guard. He had no reason to grieve for a girl he had never met. Perhaps it was simply impossible for him to imagine that such a vivacious young creature would surrender her life without a fight.
    “Was there an investigation? Any suspicion of foul play?”
    “None whatsoever,” Mrs. Spencer said flatly. “The girl left behind a note that made her intentions quite clear.”
    “Notes can be forged.”
    The housekeeper slanted him a wry look. “In overwrought theatricals and gothic novels perhaps. But we are not so clever or diabolical here in Cornwall. I suspect her suicide was simply the impulsive action of a rash young girl steeped in a morass of guilt and self-pity.”
    Max gazed up at the portrait, in danger of forgetting the housekeeper’s presence once again. “I should have liked to have made her acquaintance.”
    “Don’t despair, my lord. You may yet get your chance.”
    Mrs. Spencer retrieved her candlestick from his hand and went sweeping away toward the staircase on the opposite end of the gallery, leaving Max with no choice but to follow or be left behind in the darkness.
    As the full import of her words sank in, he could not resist stealing one last look over his shoulder to watch the portrait of the irrepressible Miss Cadgwyck melt back into the shadows.
    A T THE FAR END of the third-floor corridor of the east wing, Mrs. Spencer used one of the keys from her expansive collection to unlock the master suite. As she pushed open the door, Max felt his spirits sink. The spacious chamber still bore traces of its former splendor, but the marble hearth was just as dark and dusty as the one in the drawing room. Nor was any supper laid before it.
    A single lamp burned on the side table next to the canopied four-poster, casting more shadows than it dispelled.
    Had Max known he was going to receive such an inhospitable welcome, he might have at least lingered at the inn for a bowl of stew. Apparently, he was expected to content himself with the maddening aroma of bread wafting from Mrs. Spencer’s hair. As savagely hungry as he suddenly was, it wasall he could do not to lean down and gobble her right up.
    She had stepped aside to let him pass, making it clear she had no