Wedded in Scandal by Jade Lee Read Free Book Online

suppose you have.”
    “Excellent,” she said with a grin. “Then if you would—”
    “I said if the bill was honest, Mrs. Mortimer. You have yet to describe this ball gown to me. Unless, of course, there is some reason why you would not.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I will describe it.”
    He smiled and shot her own words right back. “I am simply breathless with wonder.”
    She grimaced, her nose wrinkling in a delightful manner. “It is blue, my lord, with Belgium lace crisscrossed over the bodice. Shoulders bare, as she will be a married woman by then and can reveal a great deal more than before, and with a shawl of gauze such as will preserve her modesty if she wants or that can be draped in a variety of tantalizing poses should she not.”
    He blinked. My God, did she think he wished to know of his sister in tantalizing poses? “You are speaking of my baby sister,” he said in irritation. “The one who wore pigtails and sported ink stains on her nose.”
    “No, my lord,” she said gently. “I am speaking of your fully grown sister who will be a married woman within a month. And quite possibly increasing soon after that.”
    He shuddered at that. His baby sister with a babe of herown. He knew it was possible. Probable, even. That is what married women did, was it not? But in his mind, she was still so young.
    “It is the way of young girls, you know. They grow up and start families of their own.” Then Mrs. Mortimer did something wholly unexpected. She rose in a single lithe movement and crossed to the brandy snifter. Then she poured him a glass, swirling it for him just as it ought to be done, and brought it to him. But she didn’t just cross to his side; she set it in his hand, then sank to the floor before him. She looked up at him just as his sister had once done, back when she was still a hoyden running wild throughout the house. And Mrs. Mortimer smiled up at him in exactly the same way.
    “Change is hard, especially when it is inevitable. But you should be proud of the woman she has become, my lord. Not fighting the purchase of her trousseau.”
    He swallowed. She was right. And when she sat like that before him, he could deny her nothing. Except for one thing.
    “Mrs. Mortimer,” he said as he reached out and stroked her cheek just as he had done with Gwen so many years ago. “I cry foul.”
    She blinked. “What?”
    “Gwen does not have a ball gown such as you describe. It has not been made and you and your bill are false.” She made to leap to her feet, but he was faster than she. Within a second, he had clamped a hand down on her arm, preventing her escape. “Oh, do remain right where you are, Mrs. Mortimer. It will no doubt take a few moments for the constable to arrive.”

Chapter 3

    “No, no, wait!” cried Helaine, as she desperately tried to free herself. She might as easily tilt with an oak tree. “I am not lying!”
    Lord Redhill’s dark eyes glittered down at her. “You know why I told you that story about my father and his bootblack?”
    She shook her head. She had no idea except that it had lulled her into flirting with the man. Flirting! She hadn’t done that since she’d been a respectable earl’s daughter and not Mrs. Mortimer. She licked her lips. “My lord…,” she began, but he cut her off.
    “Because in this one aspect, Mrs. Mortimer, I am
nothing
like my father. I cannot abide a thief no matter how charming. And you, my dear, are obviously one of the best.”
    “I am not!” she cried, horrified that tears were welling up. With one simple exchange, she had been transported right back to five years before, when she protested her innocence to no avail. She’d been honest her entire life, then her father committed one drunken, thieving stupidity, and she was tarred with the same feather. The humiliation ofthat memory pushed her to a strength she did not normally possess. She shoved him off, though her arm was nearly wrenched from its socket, and