Read Online Not Wicked Enough by Carolyn Jewel - Free Book Online Page A

occupy his thoughts. Though it’s true, he does not smile often,” Nigel said.
     
    “Not unless he thinks he has to,” Jane said.
     
    “I don’t think that’s so,” said Miss Wellstone. She kept writing.
     
    Mountjoy pushed off the doorway and headed for the table. Best join them before they said something about him that would embarrass them all.
     
    Jane looked up, and her eyes met Mountjoy’s. Her cheeks flushed pink. She stood and squeaked out a set of nonsense syllables he presumed was meant to be his name. Good God. Did he actually frighten her?
     
    Nigel and Eugenia continued unaware, and Miss Wellstone was too absorbed in writing out her sentence to notice Jane’s reaction or the reason for it.
     
    “I’m not going to write something that isn’t true,” Miss Wellstone was saying. She looked at Nigel instead of Eugenia or Jane. “How about ‘The Duke of Mountjoy is in dire need of a new wardrobe’?”
     
    Eugenia saw him, and she started. She cleared her throat and got out the words that had stuck there. “Mountjoy. Whatever are
you
doing here?”
     
    Miss Wellstone froze.
     
    Nigel looked over his shoulder, saw him, and turned the color of old porridge. “You.”
     
    “Good afternoon, Nigel,” he said as if he’d overheard nothing. “Eugenia. Miss Kirk.” He headed for the other side of Miss Wellstone’s chair so as to have a view of the table. There was no reason on earth for Jane Kirk to be afraid of him or believe he never smiled. None. “What has you four so occupied?” he asked. He was near enough now to see a sheet of paper on the table. Unlikely as it seemed, the words glowed a sickly yellow. He made out the lines from Macbeth. She had not, it appeared, gotten around to writing down Nigel’s little ditty about him nor her own suggestion. “What the devil?”
     
    “Your grace,” Miss Wellstone said with a brilliant smile that left him momentarily witless. “Good afternoon.” She held a quill in her right hand and in her left a phial of water. There was a small pot on the table, capped. The tip of her quill appeared to be wet.
     
    He was aware that Nigel, Eugenia, and Jane had gone quiet, but in that silence he forgot how to breathe. Because Lily Wellstone, when she smiled like that, was quite literally breathtaking.
     
    “We are engaged in a scientific experiment.” She gestured with the hand that held the quill. He did not think he was mistaken that the point of the quill was emitting the same eerie yellowish light as the words on her sheet of paper.
     
    “An experiment?”
     
    “Indeed, your grace.” She lifted the paper. “Behold!”
     
    He hadn’t been wrong. The words were glowing.
     
    “If the room were dark,” she went on, “I’m sure the effect would be even more dramatic. I was about to ask Lord Nigel to draw the curtains. Do you mind if he does?”
     
    “What is that?”
     
    She used the quill to point to a book that had not yet been bound. The cover was still the ashy blue cardboard sheets. He could not read the label pasted on the spine. “A book I bought shortly before I left for Sheffieldshire.
The New Family Receipt Book.
It’s filled with the most fascinating information and advice. Invaluable to household management. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to provide your cook with a recipe for coffee made with acorns.”
     
    “Acorns.” She kissed like an angel.
     
    “Or potatoes.”
     
    “Coffee from potatoes?” He shot a glance at Jane. She sat with her hands clasped on her lap, and she did look terrified. He smiled at her before returning his attention to Lily. “Forgive me, Miss Wellstone, but that’s vile.”
     
    Her lips pressed together and she managed, somehow, to look down her nose at him even though she was sitting and he was standing.
     
    “You think it’s not vile?”
     
    “I think it’s narrow-minded of you to judge without evidence. It is an ingenious receipt.” She waved the quill again. “Think of