Read Online Confessions of a Little Black Gown by Elizabeth Boyle - Free Book Online

arose, she shot a glance at him that nearly knocked him out of his shabby boots. The tip of her lips, the arch of her neck, and the hooded whisper of her lashes as they blinked ever so slowly, offered a promise of something no innocent miss of twenty and then some should have any knowledge of.
    His blood coursed through his veins in an unholy fashion. Whatever did she expect him to do? Ravish her right there before the first course?
    His heart took a double thud. For now he knew.
    The reason for this dress. Her late arrival. Miss Thalia Langley had made him her mission. For whatever reasons, she was after him, onto him, would be on him…
    Suddenly his thoughts were of just that… Miss Langley with that glorious gown in a velvet puddle around her trim ankles and the gel gloriously naked, reaching for him, pulling him to her, and they were lost in a deep, dangerous kiss…
    “A-hem,” she coughed, her brows tilting above sparkling blue eyes.
    He dared another glance at her and watched as she nodded toward the empty chair beside him.
    Her chair.
    Oh, yes. He was supposed to be getting that for her. Not standing here lusting after his host’s innocent sister-in-law.
    Innocent? Hardly. Enticing? Entirely.
    Distracted, he pulled her chair out, scraping the legs over the polished floor, the sound like a razor being dragged across a strap, a scrape that dug into every ear and only called more attention to him.
    He didn’t even dare another look into those dangerous blue eyes of hers, or the other pairs around the room that he had to guess were now boring into him.
    If only to have somewhere to look (other than at Miss Langley’s bounteous bosom) he haphazardly glanced up at his host.
    Hollindrake had his lips pressed together, dabbing his napkin at them to hide the trembling of his chin.
    The ruddy bastard thought this was funny!
    Of course he would, for he’d thought Larken’s arrival nothing more than an amusing jest as well. Yes, he’d been more than willing to help apprehend a wanted man, but like Larken, thought it highly unlikely that Lady Philippa or Miss Langley had freed Captain Dashwell from prison, let alone brought the man to Hollindrake House. While it was a large house, it would be nigh on impossible, he assured Larken, to hide someone from the servants.
    “Thank you, Mr. Ryder,” the chit said in a purring voice. “But you are allowed to sit down now,” she urged him, politely of course.
    “Yes, of course, Miss Langley,” he managed, then stumbled on the leg of her chair as he came aroundto his, nearly bumping into his hostess as she returned to her place.
    He felt the sudden stillness of the room as everyone glanced at their place setting or their wine-glass rather than witness more of his clod-handed manners.
    Really, Larken , he told himself, you don’t have to play the chaw-bacon quite so utterly. Besides, you’re here to determine if Miss Langley or Lady Philippa had a hand in freeing Dashwell .
    And given the glances she continued to toss in his direction, she seemed so… willing… to be friends, perhaps it would be…well, prudent, to go along with her, gain her trust and then unearth her secrets.
    Like how exactly she kept that dress up… a rakish part of him whispered.
    Oh, yes, that would be entirely in character with his disguise. Like some bad Covent Garden three-act comedy.
    The Uncouth Vicar and the Innocent.
    He took another glance in her direction and there it was again, that look of hers that left him rattled out of his senses. Make that The Righteous Vicar and the Ruinous Vixen .
    “There now, we are all here,” the duchess said with a regal composure and a serene smile that belied the determined glint in her eyes. “Mr. Ryder, will you favor us by saying grace before we begin?”
    Saying what? Larken glanced up at her. Surely he hadn’t heard her correctly.
    “Grace?” she said, in a nudging sort of way.
    “Yes, oh, yes, grace,” he stammered. “Yes, ofcourse.” Then he