Read Online Always a Princess by Alice Gaines - Free Book Online

ever since he’d learned he was in line to inherit the earldom and had to come home. “The Empire might just crumble if we all started enjoying ourselves.”
    “Is that what you’re doing right now?” she demanded. “Enjoying yourself?”
    “I suppose so. Why not?” And in fact, he was. The day had turned out splendidly, the sun warm but not too warm. A slight breeze played among the flowers and the leaves on the trees. And it toyed with a few stray hairs that had escaped from Miss Eve Stanhope’s coiffure, giving her a ruffled look. The sun put a positive glow to her skin, too, quite out of keeping with the pallor most women found fashionable. With enough imagination, he might even picture her in Eastern costume, dressed in flowing robes with all that ebony hair falling over her shoulders and down her back.
    Indeed, the woman was difficult—obstinate and secretive—but at least she didn’t bore him. Yes, he was enjoying himself.
    “And you,” he said. “Can you take no pleasure at all in my company?”
    She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “You’re not going to try kissing me again, are you?”
    “Not if you don’t want me to. I don’t force myself on women.”
    “The other night…” She trailed off.
    “Circumstance compelled me the other night,” he said. “You seemed cooperative enough at the time, as I recall.”
    “As you said, circumstance.”
    More posturing on her part. She’d caught fire in his arms that night, just as he’d gone up in flames. It had truly been an extraordinary kiss, and her closeness now brought it all back to him: her sighs, the feel of her fingers at the nape of his neck, the way her tongue had shyly explored his lips, that thing she’d done with her hands. She could try to blame that on circumstance, but he knew it for what it was—female passion—demanding and surrendering all at once. An irresistible combination he might very well want to explore further and at leisure. But he didn’t have to discuss that with her now. Right now, he’d make her a business proposition and let the pleasure follow in its own time.
    “Now that you’ve properly thanked me for my generosity toward you…” he began.
    She huffed in disapproval.
    “And very prettily, too, I must say,” he continued. “I’d like to offer you my further assistance.”
    “I don’t want your assistance.”
    “Miss Stanhope, you don’t strike me as a stupid woman.” She didn’t answer but only gave him the same scowl she’d so disliked from the society matron a moment before. He ought to take offense at the look, but coming from such a disreputable source, her disapproval was really rather funny. “You also don’t strike me as particularly wealthy, at least not enough to mingle in with the set that has jewelry worth stealing.”
    “Some people steal things because they have to,” she said.
    “With my help you can do a better job of it.”
    “I’m doing just fine without your help.”
    “I don’t think so,” he said. “You didn’t manage to steal the ruby from Lady Bainbridge, and you won’t be able to visit her again unless you have another dress to wear.”
    She crossed her arms over her chest and stood, speechless.
    “You—and that dress—made quite an impression on everyone there. Especially the men. They’d remember it if they saw it again, and we all know that rich women don’t wear the same dress twice in one season.”
    She still didn’t say anything, but the tapping of her toe spoke volumes.
    “You’ll need an entire new wardrobe if you’re to continue to impersonate royalty,” he said. “I imagine you’ll need a carriage, too.”
    “I have a carriage,” she said.
    “Probably not something that could stand up to scrutiny.”
    She put her hands on her hips and looked quite put out. “If I had those things I wouldn’t need to be stealing jewels, now would I?”
    “Exactly my point,” he replied. “You need all that, and I could provide