Read Online How to Deceive a Duke by Lecia Cornwall - Free Book Online Page B

soap, the tang of leather, and she was more afraid in that moment than she’d ever been in her life. She slammed her eyes shut and puckered. He pulled back with a frown and she read confusion and anger in his eyes. Hot blood filled her cheeks, and she pulled her veil back over her face to hide her dismay.
    He grabbed her wrist without a word and strode down the aisle, dragging her behind him.
    Her mother sobbed as they raced past, the sound of her grief echoing off the vaulted ceiling. Hector looked grim. The duchess stood stiffly silent in the family pew. If she knew, she gave no sign that her grandson had married the wrong woman.
    The rest of the church was nearly empty. Other than immediate family, no one at all had been invited to the wedding.
    Realization shook her anew as the bells began to peal. The man dragging her out of the church at a dead run was her husband. For better or worse—probably more the latter than the former—she was married.
    The Devil of Temberlay was not so amusing now.
    She glanced up at St. George as they swept out of the church and whispered a prayer, but the saint had slain his dragon, and she was on her own.

Chapter 10
    T emberlay dragged her down the steps, his grip like iron. Meg flinched as handfuls of wheat hit her like hail. She tried to tug free to slow down, but he hurried on, ignoring her struggles.
    He reached the nearest coach and opened the door. “Hartley Place, Rogers,” he ordered as he thrust her into the dark interior.
    She perched stiffly on the plush seat, and he settled himself across from her. She examined her husband from under the veil as the coach lurched away from the curb. The velvet squabs were dark green, which made his coat look all the more garish. She felt a bubble of hysterical laughter catch in her throat, though aside from his attire, there was nothing at all amusing about him. The caricatures didn’t begin to do him justice. He was better-looking, bigger, and far more dangerous in person. He bore no resemblance at all to the playful rascal in the scandal sheets.
    “You can take off that veil now, Daisy,” he said, and she stiffened at his insolent use of the wrong name. Even Rose would have been better.
    “Daisy might take hers off, but I have no intention of doing so,” she said, and bit her lip. She sounded like a prim little fool.
    He sent her a lazy smile that turned her insides to jelly. Men smiled like that at Rose, not Marguerite. He plucked a rose from her bouquet and brought it to his nose in a polished gesture.
    “If I call you Rose, and ask nicely, will you comply?”
    Suddenly Meg did not want to be called by her sister’s name. Not by this man.
    “No,” she said stubbornly.
    “Surely I’ve earned the right to look at you. I married you, and you’ve been well paid for the honor of becoming Duchess of Temberlay,” he said coldly.
    “Not well enough paid to endure insults! Are you drunk?” She’d read that he drank four bottles of wine at breakfast, switched to whisky, gin, and stout at lunch, and enjoyed countless glasses of champagne by night.
    He raised his brows. “Not at the moment, but I intend to remedy that as soon as I get home. I wonder when I’ll need the solace of drink more—before or after I bed you?”
    Her stomach flipped. Something in his eyes told her this would be very different indeed from the mating of horses, or from the casual kisses Rose had described, or anything else in her narrow realm of experience. She would not let him know that, however. She raised her chin and bluffed. “Let’s make it before, shall we? I hear that drink renders a man incapable.” She’d seen that tidbit in a scandal sheet somewhere, hadn’t she? He laughed, hardly the response she’d hoped for.
    “T hat’s never been a problem for me,” Nicholas drawled. She was quick-witted, at least, if tart-tongued. He watched her incredible mouth work. Her mouth rippled in trepidation as she wondered if she’d gone too far. Even