To Distraction by Stephanie Laurens Read Free Book Online Page A

from a different quarter….
    The thought should have brought relief. She told herself that’s what she felt, but couldn’t quite make herself believe it.
    She mentally set her teeth. Irritated, annoyed, and not a little dismayed, she kept a smile on her lips and forced her mind back to the discussions around her—and forced it to remain there. May the saints preserve her if she was so easily seduced by a man’s glib tongue that in just an hour or two she’d come to crave his company.
    As matters transpired, she needn’t have worried about disturbing any celestial host; leaving Edith and Audrey, Deverell crossed the room to her side.
    Directly to her side.
    She felt his gaze on her, steady, unwavering, and growing in intensity as he neared, and then he was there; as if by magic, a space opened up, allowing him to stand beside her. She continued to smile, but when she glanced his way, the gesture grew somewhat thin.
    His eyes met hers, amusement lurking, but then he turned to the others.
    And in a matter of minutes, with a few well-placed comments, a few artful suggestions, dispersed the group.
    She fought to keep her jaw from dropping. His questions over the dinner table hadn’t been idle, the information he’d encouraged her to impart far from random. She’d told him all he needed to know to distract every other eligible gentleman or lady there.
    The realization left her momentarily dumbfounded, unable to bludgeon her wits into thinking of any clever way of circumventing his strategy. When Peter Mellors and Georgina Riley, the last of her unwitting defenders, flashed herparting smiles and left to ask Lady Cranbrook about the croquet equipment, leaving her deserted, entirely alone with her nemesis by the side of the room, she drew in a long breath and turned to face him, unable to keep her eyes from narrowing.
    He met her gaze and merely raised a brow.
    “My lord—”
    “Call me Deverell. Everyone does.”
    “You appear to be laboring under a misapprehension. No matter how set on the outcome you are, I am not going to be swayed—”
    “Perhaps”—his green gaze remained steady on her face—“we should adjourn to the terrace? While I am, of course, eager to hear whatever you wish to say to me, I see no reason for the numerous interested others populating this room to be privy to our discussion—do you?”
    She didn’t. He’d shifted so his shoulders effectively screened her from the room, but she had little doubt a certain amount of prurient interest was, nevertheless, focused on them.
    “If the propriety troubles you, your aunt can see us.”
    “Propriety be damned—I’m twenty-five!” Turning on her heel, she led the way through the French doors onto the paved terrace.
    Hiding a smile, Deverell followed at her heels.
    So close that when she abruptly halted halfway across the wide terrace and swung to face him, he nearly mowed her down.
    He stopped just in time, with no more than an inch between them, a bare inch separating her silk-clad breasts and his chest.
    Looking down, he watched as the ivory mounds revealed by her low-cut bodice swelled and rose. But she didn’t step back. Raising his gaze, first to her lips, fractionally parted,then to her eyes, wide, her gaze disoriented, he realized she’d stopped breathing.
    Dazedly, she blinked, then her gaze drifted to his lips.
    Every instinct he possessed urged him to slide an arm about her, draw her against him, bend his head, and taste those luscious lips.
    And counter her arguments with one of his own.

Chapter 3
    B ut…
    Her pulse was racing; he sensed it—a primal knowledge he didn’t think to question. She’d never been this close to a man, any man intent on wooing her. Seducing her. He’d already accepted that the latter would precede the former; as she’d so stridently stated, she was twenty-five.
    And highly, extremely—more than he’d ever known any woman to be—sensually aware of him. A highly passionate woman unawakened, she’d