Read Online Lady in Red by Máire Claremont - Free Book Online Page B

kept him pleased? Yet it did matter. She wanted to speak the truth with this man, even if she had also seen how hard her mother had worked to please her father. How frequently she had failed.
    “You cannot force me to be better, Edward.”
    He contemplated her, those black eyes sharpening. “Mary, I will not force you into anything. I will, however, treat you with kindness, with politeness, so that you see that you deserve so much more than you have known.”
    She smiled, a glib, humorless twist of lips and teeth. “I have little experience in politeness and will not likely recognize it.”
    “Why is that?”
    “We were discussing your circumstances, not mine,” she redirected.
    “So we were,” he drawled. “To be clear, I do not derive pleasure from the suffering of others.”
    How she longed to believe him, to trust him, but she saw it in his eyes. He was holding back, hiding something as he tried to convince her he was nothing like the men she knew. But he had made people suffer. He would make people suffer still.
    She would never tell him which girl at Yvonne’s had given her the laudanum. Anger simmered in him, just under his calm surface. Anyone who attempted to hurt her would see that fury unleashed . . . In that, he was just like her father. No one was to blemish his diamond or his pearl. No one but himself.
    “Let me try to help you,” he insisted softly.
    Mary inhaled slowly as she realized it wasn’t for her that he desired her happiness. A force deep inside his ailing heart was driving him. “If I allow you to try, will you admit you may not succeed?”
    “No, Calypso.” Ever so slowly, he lifted his beautiful hand, a hand that any sculptor would sell his soul to set in immortal stone, and carefully cupped her hollowed cheek. “In this, I will not admit defeat. Nor should you.”
    Emotions dueled within her soul. One urged her to rest her cheek in his strong palm, giving over to a moment of safety and care, no matter how false. For, surely, it would prove false. She could not forget her father’s lesson that all men wore masks hiding their true natures beneath. The other emotion, the one beating loudest through her blood, pushed her to run. Despite his seemingly pure wish, she longed to run from the inevitable destruction that came from men like him.
    Despite her fear, she let the heat and strength of his touch hold her. It was a luxury she could ill afford, but perhaps this man’s touch was worth the risk?
    His soft breath of appreciation at her trust punctured the room and for a brief instant she felt safe.
    Closing her eyes, she forced herself back to another time. A time when she had offered herself up to joy. Happiness was something she had once been immersed in from the first moment of morning to the last breath she took before sleep. Even in sleep her dreams had been full of a glittering future as a duke’s privileged and well-loved daughter.
    Yet she’d discovered every precious moment of it had been a treacherous lie, waiting to unravel under her father’s carefully woven spell.
    Mary opened her eyes and strained to take in the blindingly austere, creased white linen covering her body. He was going to continue to insist he could make her happy. She knew it from the many times her mother had attempted to reason with her father. No matter how she tried, or what point she made, it would end in fruitless defeat. It was a lesson she’d learned well. She carefully withdrew from him and said, “I need rest, Edward.”
    “Of course.” He rose from the bed, the sudden relief of his weight causing the bed to shift. “One of the chambermaids will be available for whatever you require. I shall return to make sure you are . . . well.”
    She plastered a grateful smile upon her lips. After all, she was grateful to this powerful man. “Thank you.”
    He headed for the door, his strong legs easily cutting across the large room. Good heavens, his back was broad and strong. As if one could hammer