Read Online Loving Lord Ash by Sally Mackenzie - Free Book Online Page A

That is all she has ever been to me—except now she will be my sister-in-law as well. Didn’t you know she’s been in love with Ned since we were children?”
    Jess frowned. “But Ned married Cicely.”
    “That didn’t change Ellie’s feelings.” But then Jess hadn’t been at the castle to see that. She hadn’t been invited to Ned’s first wedding, and she hadn’t been there when Cicely and the baby had died.
    Perhaps that had been badly done of him, but he’d felt the only way he could manage the pain was to cut her out of his life entirely.
    And now here he was, sitting across a table from her, getting ready to make their separation permanent.
    He should do so without a qualm. How many more naked men did he need to find her with to understand divorce was his only option?
    And yet . . .
    She was so beautiful and so familiar. His idiotic heart still wished to find a path to happiness with her, to children and years of marital love.
    Stupid, stupid heart.
    He took a swallow of brandy. “You said you had a proposal.”

Chapter Five
     
Once you see the glimmer of an opening,
shove your foot into the crack.
—Venus’s Love Notes
     
    “Yes.” Jess leaned forward, her expression suddenly hardening into what looked to be determination while the candlelight made her skin glow.
    God, she took his breath away.
    “You need an heir.”
    He inclined his head. “Obviously.”
    “And procuring a divorce is an expensive, messy, lengthy business.”
    His heart—or, more likely, another organ—urged him to reach across the table and run his thumb over her lips. Instead he clasped his brandy glass more tightly. “Which is why it is time I got started with it.”
    Jess’s lovely brows snapped down.
    Zeus! When she was a girl, she used to frown like that at anyone who didn’t fall in with her plans immediately.
    Her fingers tapped the table. They were long and slender, and for once she’d managed to get all the paint off them.
    She’d always been so happy with a brush in her hand. Her paintings, like her, had been full of life and color. That passion had been one of the things that had attracted him to her. His life had seemed dull in comparison, drawn in measured lines, painted in pale watercolor.
    Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised she’d taken to depicting naked men.
    “It will be painful and embarrassing for you and your family, Kit, especially your mother. She’s the Duchess of Love, after all. Think of all the fun the wags will have with that.”
    “Yes.” He had thought of it and had hoped to avoid it. It was one reason he’d made the trip to the manor to see if he and Jess might come to an agreement.
    But what he’d seen was Jess with that naked footman.
    He took a swallow of brandy.
    “The talk will affect you, too,” she said.
    He shrugged. “Yes, but I’ll wager the ton will forgive a future duke.”
    Her frown twisted into an expression he’d not seen on her face before—self-mockery. “I’m sure you are correct. They will likely forgive you even more quickly since your first wife was a servant.”
    She’d mentioned that earlier. “You weren’t a servant, Jess. I never thought of you that way.” She had always been Jess, his friend.
    His love.
    “Of course I was. My father was the head groom.” She looked down at her plate and pushed a few lonely peas around. “Though I grant you I couldn’t have found a position anywhere, unless someone wanted a painter who wasn’t very good at making people look better than they are.”
    He had to smile at that. Cicely had been extremely put out—and Ned upset on her behalf—at the painting Jess had done of her when Cicely was fifteen. Jess had always thought the girl rather insipid, and it showed in her portrait.
    But that was then, before Percy and the naked footman.
    “What is your point, Jess? As you say, I need an heir.” He took another sip of brandy. “Are you offering to give me one?”
    “Yes.”
    The brandy went down the wrong