Unveiled by Courtney Milan Read Free Book Online Page B

about Mark’s eyes softened. “Well, then I’ll have to show you.” He shot a glance at his brother across the table and smiled again—this time, more impishly. “After all, I have no problem if my brother is forced to embrace chastity.” He picked up his fork, applying himself to the meat in front of him as if no further conversation were necessary.
    Perhaps he’d not fully realized what he’d implied with those careless words.
    By the dour look in Mr. Turner’s eyes, and the slow shake of his head, his brother was not amused.
    Margaret heard both the words and the meaning behind them. So much for Mr. Turner’s vaunted honor, his claim that he wouldn’t prey upon a woman alone. The realization turned the bite of turnip in her mouth to charcoal. They’d talked about her already, as brothers were wont to do. In the space of one day, Mr. Turner had already made plans to seduce her—plans so firm, he’d shared them with his younger brother. She’d heard Edmund speaking with his friends often enough, discussing this widow or that willing wife, when they didn’t know she could hear their conversation.
    No doubt Mr. Turner thought she would fall into his bed. Women probably did, for him. That relentless pull tugged her now, even when she wasn’t looking at him. Women laid their hearts at the feet of men like him—a man so ruthlessly intense as to take one’s breath away, and cheerful enough to make one laugh while he did it.
    But then, for all his cheerful intensity, he’d aimed that ruthlessness at her before.
    A year ago, she’d been the belle of the ball, the toast of the town, a diamond of the first water, engaged to a peer of the realm. She’d been the closest thing to a princess that there was.
    Then Ash Turner had intruded in her life. She had been nothing but an afterthought to him, if that. Still, the toast had been charred by the fire; the diamond had turned out to be carved ice, destined to melt in the first heat of gossip.
    He’d robbed her of her name, her dowry, her everything. If after all of that, Mr. Turner thought he would get one scrap of affection from her, he was badly mistaken.
    Â 
    A SH NEEDED TO HAVE a conversation with his brother about discretion.
    After that first frozen stare, half horror, half betrayal, Miss Lowell had simply stopped looking at him. And that, Ash decided, was a very, very bad thing. The pudding came—a mercy to kill the conversation—and she sat in place at table, moving the mixed fruit and cream about with her spoon. Her lips pinched together and her complexion went from pale pink and animated to gray and closed.
    There was a gold chain around her neck. The necklace disappeared into the high neck of her gown, weighted into a narrow V, as if there were some heavy locket suspended on it. He felt a hint of jealousy, wondering who had given it to her, and what she might hold inside it.
    No doubt she was wondering how to fight him off. That made him feel like some sordid roué, thinking ofnothing but his own pleasure. But as little as he’d been in polite company, even Ash knew better than to issue a clarification. “No, Miss Lowell,” Ash could imagine himself saying, “I would never force myself on you. I mean to seduce you into willingness. That’s all.” That would get him a fork stabbed through his hand, by the black look she gave her pudding.
    Thank God the knives had been removed along with the beef.
    She finished moving the fruit around her plate. Supper was breaking apart—Mark made the customary excuses on behalf of the gentlemen—and still she’d not met his eyes. This was wrong. He couldn’t let it continue.
    When she left, he followed her. They had barely reached the landing of the stairs before she turned on him. There was a ferocious light in her eyes, and he held up his hands to show he intended her no harm.
    â€œMiss Lowell.