Read Online My Lady, My Lord by Katharine Ashe - Free Book Online

usual topics.
    “The statuary.”
    She stared at him curiously. She expected more.
    “It’s an excellent show, M— ma’am.”
Not
Mother. Idiot. Perhaps Corinna wasn’t entirely off the mark. Perhaps brandy muddled his brain. “You must be very proud of it.” No, that wasn’t right. He sounded too much like himself. What would Corinna say? “I found the alabaster figure of Aphrodite particularly intriguing.”
    “Aphrodite? That is a special piece. What did my son have to say about it?”
    Dear Lord, did his mother quiz all the ladies he spoke with about his conversation?
    “He rather admired the cut of her gown.”
    His mother chuckled. “I don’t know whether to credit that observation to Ian or to your perception of him.”
    He had to smile. His mother was no slowtop.
    “He makes no secret of his likes and dislikes,” he replied lightly. He drew up the curtain and watched the London traffic pass by. A few more hours, the opera, sleep, then back into his own body. This might be easier than he’d thought.
    When he stepped into Corinna’s drawing room, he reconsidered. The Earl of Mowbray sat in a comfortable armchair across the room. He rose as they entered and came forward. He smiled at both of them, then bowed to Ian’s mother.
    “Good afternoon, Lady Chance.”
    Her cheeks colored.
    Good Lord, three and twenty years married to his lout of a father hadn’t beaten the blushing girl from her?
    Lord Mowbray leaned forward and bussed him on the cheek. “Hello, Cora.”
    Ian stood paralyzed. He hadn’t been kissed by a man in thirty years, and not for lack of a few upperclassmen making the attempt during his first weeks at Eton. He’d swiftly shown them what he thought of that. With his fives.
    “How were the horticulturalists?” Lord Mowbray asked.
    “As prosy as ever,” Ian’s mother replied. “Don’t you agree, Cora?”
    Ian shook himself out of reverie. “They do go on,” he conceded.
    His mother laughed. Lord Mowbray gestured for them to sit, but she shook her head.
    “I must be going and allow you some time together before the opera.”
    “I’m sorry you are unable to join us,” the earl said.
    “Thank you, Marcus. But I will see you both on Saturday at Lord and Lady Patterson’s ball, won’t I?”
    “Of course.”
    She departed, leaving Ian alone with the man who had kissed him, never mind that Mowbray thought he was his daughter. He moved toward the door just in case. “I’ll go change for dinner, then.”
    “Fine, fine. You will look lovely, as always, daughter.”
    Unlikely. Ian hadn’t seen Corinna Mowbray don a color brighter than thundercloud gray in years.
    He climbed the stairs to her bedchamber and summoned a maid. The same small, thin girl from earlier arrived, full of pleasant, vacant smiles and entirely not to Ian’s tastes. Probably better for him than the full-breasted one. No sense in torturing himself with enticements he couldn’t currently appreciate.
    As the maid removed his funeral weeds and went to the wardrobe for a gown more suited to the evening—though no doubt just as dull—he peered at his reflection in the long glass.
    She wasn’t an unattractive woman. Quite the contrary. Her face wore its habitual scornful glare, but the chestnut hair she usually kept bound tight to her infernal head was long and silken. She had a good figure too. Very good. Too bad that the words that came through her full, dusky pink lips invariably made him want to commit murder. He scanned the swells of her breasts above the tightly bound corset, her slender waist, and curved hips, to the thin silk shift clinging to her thighs, and recalled his discovery of her naked body earlier in her bed.
    A hard breath left him. Thoughts passed through his mind in rapid succession, beyond disturbing in too many ways. He dragged his gaze away from the mirror.
    “How about this one, milady?” The maid held forward an ebony gown with silver lace about the edges.
    His scowl