Read Online Dangerous to Love by Rexanne Becnel - Free Book Online

though she shivered at the rush of cool night air. She leaned out, just far enough to see someone approach the carriage. A woman, with a man escorting her.
    Ivan Thornton! She would recognize his wide shoulders and lean build anywhere!
    Why that should be true she refused to ponder. But it was he, no mistaking it. And right there, in broad view of anyone who cared to look, he took the woman in his arms and kissed her!
    Kissed her? No, when the “kiss” went on and on, until Lucy felt her own cheeks flush, she knew the word “kiss” was wholly inadequate. He was ravishing the woman right there, two stories down and a little to her left. He was ravishing a woman on his own front steps!
    Finally he released the woman and helped her up into the dark carriage amidst several more ardent kisses and indecipherable murmuring. Lucy could not drag her eyes away from the scene being played out before her. What sort of woman stayed the whole night at a man’s house?
    “Idiot!” she rebuked herself. Everyone—even rustics from the countryside—knew the answer to that. Fallen women. Scarlet women. Ladies of the night.
    Still, she’d never actually seen such a woman.
    She peered all the harder, trying to pierce the gray predawn gloom. Just as she leaned out, however, the woman drew back into the carriage, the driver’s whip snapped, and the vehicle was off. Disappointed not to have the identity of the woman to link with the devilish Lord Westcott, Lucy pulled back and proceeded to crack her head on the bottom windowpane. She must have let out a cry of pain, for to her horror, the earl’s face turned up toward her.
    At once she drew back into the room, like a turtle scuttling back into its shell. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear! Had he seen her? Did he know who it was? Would he confront her and accuse her of spying on him?
    Abruptly she pulled herself together. What did it matter if he had seen her? She’d done nothing wrong. She’d but heard a noise and arisen to investigate it. It was he who should be ashamed of his behavior, not she.
    She gave an inelegant snort at that foolish idea. She could predict already that he would not be in the least ashamed. No, not him.
    Rubbing the back of her head, she crossed the room and climbed up into the high bed, then sat there cross-legged, contemplating her reluctant host, and trying to root out the source of his considerable discontent.
    He’d probably been a terribly lonely child. From what she’d heard and pieced together, it seemed he’d been removed from his mother’s care, ignored by his father, and hidden away for years at Burford Hall. For all intents and purposes, he’d been abandoned by every adult he’d ever known.
    Was it any wonder he hated his grandmother? She’d never shown him any love. One of Lucy’s several theories was that a child deprived of love became an adult who either craved love incessantly, or turned away from it entirely. In which direction had Ivan Thornton’s unhappy childhood led him?
    Though she told herself it was none of her concern, she nonetheless could not prevent herself from wondering. How had a dark-haired Gypsy child fit into the rigorously structured life of a northern boarding school? What had he done in the years after leaving the school?
    The Times had said he’d traveled abroad prior to his investiture. But was that the complete truth, or merely a way to gloss over a number of years unaccounted for?
    A soft knock at her chamber door sent all her speculations suddenly spinning. She stared aghast across the darkened room at the eight-paneled painted door. A knock, and at this hour. Who could it be?
    But of course she knew, and as quickly as that her throat went completely dry.
    The knock came again.
    She fought a battle between diving under the covers and feigning sleep, and leaping up and bolting the door against him.
    One more time the knock sounded.
    He was not going away! So get up, you fool! Don’t give him the pleasure of thinking