WANTON by Cheryl Holt Read Free Book Online Page B

leave.”
    “You won’t be going anywhere, Miss Hubbard.”
    “You’re awfully optimistic—much more optimistic than I am.”
    “I’ve already accepted a dozen invitations to various balls and soirees. They are entertainments where we will run into Lucas constantly.”
    “You say that as if it’s a good thing,” she muttered.
    “Proximity, Miss Hubbard, remember? We’ll wear him down. Between your beauty and my resolve, Lucas won’t know what hit him.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    “What am I doing?” Amelia muttered to herself, wondering if she wasn’t growing deranged.
    Why had she accompanied Lord Sidwell to London? Why had she agreed to stay for a month? Why would she conspire with him against Mr. Drake?
    Why, why, why...
    She understood that he’d blatantly coerced her. His talk of giving her an estate in Surrey, the home she’d never had but had always craved, had proved irresistible.
    It was folly for her to pursue a relationship with Mr. Drake, and even if she could seduce him into marriage, who would want him as a husband?
    As his wife, she’d have to hire old crones as her housemaids so he wouldn’t dally with them. Every time he walked out the door, she’d have to worry about where he was going, who he’d be with, and if it would be a female. What woman could bear such a life? Not Amelia, that was for certain.
    There were couples who staggered through such an unpalatable existence, but Amelia couldn’t carry on that way. She valued loyalty, fidelity, and respectful kindness, and she recognized her limitations. A philandering husband was far beyond the pale of what she could endure.
    She’d now been in the city for three days and was at her first ball. She should have been ecstatic, but she didn’t have a dress suitable for a party, and Lord Sidwell was so obtuse it hadn’t occurred to him that she needed some clothes. She couldn’t decide how to tell him and wasn’t in any position to demand them.
    The previous morning, when he’d announced the fact that she’d be attending the ball, she’d made a vague suggestion about her lack of a wardrobe, but the implication had drifted by him like water off a duck’s back.
    She hadn’t raised the possibility again.
    The ball was being held in a huge mansion next to Lord Sidwell’s town house. There were hundreds of people inside, the rooms a crush, so it was difficult to move or breathe. She’d wandered through the gathering, hoping she might see someone she knew or at least find someone with whom to chat. But upon noticing her pitiful gray dress, guests thought she was a servant and kept asking her to fetch their champagne.
    The situation had left her so humiliated that she’d sneaked out and was hiding in the shadows on the verandah.
    Like a homeless waif, she was peering in the windows at the beautiful women in their expensive gowns and jewelry. Their lives were the type she should have had. After all, her father had been an aristocrat. But she was his byblow, and on his death, she and her brother, Chase, had been cast to the four winds by his kin who’d been perfectly happy to pretend they’d never been born.
    She was trying not to gape, trying not to appear envious and resentful, but she was sure she looked pathetic. She was dowdy and drab and totally out of her element. Why, oh, why had she come to London?
    Suddenly, a very glamorous female slipped out onto the verandah and hurried down the stairs and into the garden. Amelia couldn’t help watching her. She was attired in a bright green gown and had a voluptuous figure. Her hair was a vibrant shade of red, styled in an intricate coif complete with emeralds and feathers.
    Amelia wondered what it would be like to have such fashionable clothes, to wear them with such aplomb. As she considered all that the other woman was and all that she wasn’t , she felt even more miserable.
    She was venting and moping when another person crept out of the party, a man this time, and as he glided under a nearby