The Dangerous Love of a Rogue. Jane Lark

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ bride. I came in just before them. He’s taken a wife.”

      Good Lord. That was a lark. No one would have expected the man to marry for years. He was not like his sister, his heart was made from stone, and he was no more innocent than Drew. They had travelled in the same circles on the grand tour. Pembroke had been one of the women’s toys too. But he’d walked away from it years ago. Yet he’d been tarnished by it even then.

      “Why?” Peter gripped Drew’s shoulder.

      “Oh for no reason, I simply wondered.”

      “I thought you were interested in the sister, you will hardly have a chance there if you pitch for the man’s wife.”

      Drew laughed and looked back over, Mary’s father had ceased talking to her but now her mother was speaking to her. Miss Marlow glanced across the room, her eyes seeking Drew out.

      An odd sensation leapt in his chest. He would have said it was his heart, but like Pembroke, he did not really have one. That had been kicked far too many times in his life. Her mother said something else and Miss Marlow looked away.

      Drew looked at Pembroke again. Drew liked Miss Marlow. She fulfilled all that he was seeking. Yet Pembroke would never let Drew near his little sister. That thought was a punch in the gut. Another rejection, and a rejection from a man who could have no moral standing over Drew.

      It was bloody tempting to pitch for Pembroke’s wife, solely to kick the man back.

      If Pembroke had earned himself a wife and a second chance, than why could he not offer Drew the same?

      “Stop drooling over the fair Miss Marlow, come and play cards.”

      “I ought not, I ought to dance with every woman with a dowry if I am to find one fool enough to take me.”

      “There is no hurry for you to choose a woman. If you need funds I’ll pay. Come and play. I am need of your company; Mark and Harry are already playing so I need another man I trust for my pair.”

      “Very well.”

      Drew played a few hands of cards at the tables with his friends for an hour; they did not normally attend such affairs, but Derwent’s wife was in Drew’s mother’s set, and so any young man with ill-morals had been encouraged to attend. It would end in an orgy later, but by then he and his friends would be gone. He had never been into those sorts of games.

      “I am out.” He’d played for long enough.

      If he wished to escape his current life, he must return to the task of looking for a new one.

      “Then you must settle what you owe.”

      Fortune had played against him. Drew looked at Peter who nodded as a hand moved to his pocket. Drew rose. “Good evening, gentleman.” he said to the others about the table, but then he shared a look with Peter that said I shall see you in a while. His friend smiled.

      It was all well and good to have a generous wealthy friend, but how could a man respect himself when he lived off his friend like a leach, or from services rendered to the older women of society. They saw society’s untitled sons as a pack of male whores. The devil take this life. He no longer wished for it.

      Of course there were lucky untitled sons, those who had fathers who paid for a commission in the army, or the clergy. Framlington would never have deemed to give Drew that. He had given Drew nothing bar his name, his food, and limited clothing, from Drew’s birth until his fifteenth birthday. Then Drew had learned a way to earn freedom from his false father’s house. Only to tie himself up in a new hell.

      He should have saved the money the women gave him and paid for his commission into the army, but he’d been young, and greedy, and he’d celebrated his new wealth playing hard at the tables and buying whatever he wished. Of course then the debt had begun, and the debt had sucked him deeper into the power of his mother’s set of friends; though friends was an ambiguous word. Yet they had paid his duns for years, but never enough to fully clear his debt.

      He returned to the ballroom to look for his prize – a young woman with a dowry of reasonable size, one that would clear his debt fully, and finally, and enable him to set up his life as he wished.

      His eyes were immediately drawn to Miss Marlow’s dark curls, which bounced against her shoulders as she skipped through the steps of another country dance. He truly liked the girl. She’d become his preference tonight.

      But he should not put all his eggs in one basket, as people said. He looked across the room at another debutante, a lady with auburn hair whom he’d danced with thrice. She was not as pleasing on the eye as Miss Marlow and yet her dowry was equally substantial.

      As he passed a set, a woman was spun out of the last turn of a dance breathing hard. Her gaze met his.

      Pembroke’s newly acquired wife.

      She had blue eyes, but they were not as pale a blue as her sister-in-law’s.

      Damn it, but he was tempted to play a game. He knew if he settled on Miss Marlow, then Pembroke would fight him all the way. Pembroke had turned his back on the life Drew led, and now treated all those who’d no choice but to live it, as if they were scum. Drew could teach Pembroke a lesson with this.

      As Pembroke’s wife’s partner bowed over her hand elegantly Drew saw Pembroke speaking with Lady Elizabeth Ponsonby, Drew’s sister. She was older than Drew, older than Pembroke, and of Framlington’s blood, and she’d adopted and thoroughly enjoyed their mother’s way of life.

      She was the one who had pulled Pembroke into their set on the grand tour. Pembroke had been as innocent and stupid as his little sister then. Like a baby, newly born, presented to the women in a linen cloth. Here is another young male for you to mislead.

      Drew never spoke to Elizabeth. They did not acknowledge their connection.

      Yet on this occasion Drew was grateful to her.

      Pembroke would be occupied for a while; if Elizabeth was interested in him again she would not let him escape easily.

      “Your Grace.” Drew grasped the fingers of the Duke of Pembroke’s hapless young bride as soon as her former companion walked away. The woman looked a little lost… a lost sheep… “Would you dance with me?”

      She had large blue eyes, which looked her confusion.

      “Oh, of course…” Just like her sister-in-law she was too polite, too innocent and naïve, to deny him.

      Of all the dances, it was a waltz.

      Perfect.

      He took her hand and brought her close, so her breasts pressed to his chest. She stepped back.

      This was going to be amusing at least, and perhaps if she was so newly innocent, if she could be persuaded, sharing a bed with her might actually be enjoyable.

      He span her several times, gripping her firmly as her hold was so light it felt as though she tried not to touch him at all. “So where did you meet Pembroke?”

      “I… Near Pembroke Place, Lord Framlington.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ