Read Online Never Lie to a Lady by Liz Carlyle - Free Book Online Page A

left him standing on the balcony last night? What if she had been daring enough to act on her fantasies? What if she had simply given him her name and accepted his bold invitation into his bed?
    He would have refused her, that was what would have happened. Once Lord Nash had learned she was unwed, he would have backed away as surely as if she had just burst into flames. He had the air of a man who had been singed before.
    On a sigh, Xanthia straightened up from the mirror and looked herself straight in the eye. Forget him , she told herself. It will never happen. Not with Nash, and not with any other man. Well, not unless she wanted Gareth—and Gareth wanted far more than Xanthia was prepared to give.
    With Gareth there had once been passion, yes. And a sincere friendship, too. But Xanthia understood too well that a woman, once she married, became nothing but her husband’s property. It was not that she believed Gareth would have wrested control of Neville Shipping from her, but merely that he would have had the legal right to do so. And it would have been her choice to give him that power over her and all that she had worked for. She loved him. But she did not love him enough for that.
    In the dining room, she and Kieran passed the first two courses of dinner catching up on the day’s post. Kieran was not a man given to casual conversation, but there was a little news from home in the form of a letter from a neighboring plantation, and one of Kieran’s tenants in Barbados had written to ask a rather convoluted question about water rights. Mundane business, to be sure, but it was the essence of their life together.
    Kieran and Luke, and eventually Martinique, whom Luke had adopted, were all the real family Xanthia had ever known. And they were all she needed. Suddenly, however, in the midst of passing a platter of buttered parsnips down the table, Xanthia was struck with a vision of her hand on Pamela’s gently rounding belly. She must have faltered, for Kieran grabbed the dish and drew it from her grasp. “All right, Zee?” he murmured, casting her a curious glance.
    Xanthia forced a smile. “The dish was a little heavy.”
    Kieran motioned for more wine, then sent the footmen from the room. Xanthia knew the pointed questions were about to begin, but she rarely feared her brother’s wrath. Indeed, she understood him better than anyone—which was to say not very well, and yet well enough to grasp the one truth which eluded almost everyone. Each blunt and heavy-handed thing the great Baron Rothewell did was motivated by a bone-deep sense of duty; a duty he had been neither born to nor trained for. A duty which he had brought upon himself—or so he believed.
    Their elder brother’s untimely death had scared them both deeply, for in one horrifying instant, the brave trio of orphans had become but two. And neither she nor Kieran had been prepared for it. So she forgave Kieran his meddling and his barking, and bore it with as much fortitude as she could muster.
    Kieran was circling the wine around the bowl of his glass and staring into it almost blindly. “I wish to hear all about this Nash fellow, my dear,” he said. “I gather you met him at Pamela’s?”
    Xanthia lowered her eyes. “In passing.”
    “Well, you must have made quite an impression, Zee,” he went on. “You realize, of course, that Gareth Lloyd’s heart will be broken if you marry your Lord Dark-and-Dangerous?”
    Xanthia stopped nudging her peas from one side of the plate to the other. “I beg your pardon?” she said. “If I what ?”
    Kieran eyed her from across the table. “If you marry Nash.”
    Xanthia’s eyes felt as round as her dinner plate. “What in heaven’s name gave you such a notion?”
    “Perhaps it was the fact that the man asked permission to court you,” Kieran returned. “What, did he not come to the point?”
    Xanthia was aghast. “He certainly did not.”
    “Good.” Kieran took up his knife and deftly sliced the