Read Online A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal by Meredith Duran - Free Book Online Page B

disappearance had been very public news sixteen years ago.
    On the other hand, did it matter? She looked close enough to Katherine to be her twin, and she certainly could be coached to recite the right memories. Once she was plumped up and put into a Worth or Doucet, nobody with eyes would deny that she was an Aubyn.
    At least, not until she opened her mouth.
    “Where are you taking me?” she asked him, although it came out rather shrilly, and more along the lines of
Ware-yuh takin’ mee
.
    Well, no one would expect the elocution skills of a six-year-old to have endured hard treatment. And this girl had been treated hard. That was clear enough in the way her eyes darted left and right, as though the hall might disgorge a bandit intent on mischief. He gathered that he might fall into that category, since she also took care to keep a remarkably constant distance from him—a length, he finally realized, just longer than an arm’s reach. She took care to be impossible to grab.
    “The library,” he answered. He pondered the wisdom of informing her that she could be calm; he had no intentions of grabbing her at present. Indeed, he was still amazed by the effect she’d had on him last night. Granted, he’d been in a state of undress, which did tend to cast a man’s mind into erotic directions. And she’d squirmed most enthusiastically. But apart from the fact that she smelled like a sewer and wasmore bones than curves, she was his predecessor’s spawn and looked almost exactly like Kitty. These twin facts should have proved more effective than an ice bucket in chilling his interest.
    Yet the attraction thrived. It flourished like a plant in some hot, tropical jungle. He could not quite believe he’d put his mouth to anything so filthy; in the strong morning light, a patch of dirt appeared ingrained on her neck. But there you had it: his interest was not only strategic, but prurient. He felt obscenely curious about her—and about himself, in her presence. Like a man drawn to the edge of a cliff by a suicidal curiosity, he tested himself now: did he want her because she was the heaven-sent answer to a dilemma? Or simply because he could have her—right now, if he liked, in any fashion he chose?
    Yesterday he’d thought he’d learned what it meant to be powerless: to be robbed and defeated, comprehensively, by a dead man. The frustration, the humiliation of helplessness, had kept him up long enough to hear the smallest click of an opening door, and the soft fall of a footstep aiming for silence.
    Had he wanted comfort; had he desired reassurance; had he required evidence that he was not powerless, after all—he could not have asked for better proof than her.
She
was a lesson in true vulnerability. She had broken into his home with a revolver so antiquated that only luck had prevented it from discharging accidentally. If, in retaliation, he decided to keep her locked in a room until his servants worked up the courage to object—which would take days, possibly weeks—he still would have nothing to fear.
    Let the police be summoned. He would only need to inform them of the circumstances of her entry intohis home, and she’d be off to prison in an instant. She was nobody—not yet—and he was the Earl of Rushden.
    His predecessor had not managed to deny him all the perquisites of the title, after all. Even near to penniless, he’d still enjoy the privileges of his name, while she—well, she would be truly helpless.
    Yet she seemed wholly unaware of her sad state. Not one plea for forgiveness had issued from her mouth. Not even, now that he thought on it, a
please
.
    Come to think of it,
he
was the only one who’d spoken that word to date.
    He laughed under his breath. Of course he was attracted to her—he’d always admired brazen gall.
    He stepped ahead of her to open the library door. This gentlemanly reflex earned him a sharp look. She sidled past him into the room, then came to an abrupt stop. “Coo,” he