Read Online One Night of Passion by Elizabeth Boyle - Free Book Online

who was handsome and passionate, and full of life . . .
    Not these poor examples . . . She hadn’t realized that most of the men in the ton were more akin to her Uncle Phineas than the man on her arm.
    Oh, if only for tonight, she thought, slanting a glance up at him, he could be my rake.
    When she’d tripped into his arms and their bodies had tumbled together, she’d never known such a thrill, such a sudden rush of desire.
    Despite the fact that she was an innocent, in that moment she knew what it meant to want a man . . . to yearn for his bare skin against hers, to feel his hands cup her breasts in more than just a mistaken brush of fate . . . and to let her body meld to his in a heated, torrid rush.
    Even now, with her hand resting on his sleeve, the tempting warmth beneath his jacket worked its way through her kidskin gloves, leaving her fingers tingling.
    He paused for another couple to pass before them. “Do you mind telling me how you expect me to make an introduction if I don’t know your name?”
    Her name?
    “Oh bother, I quite overlooked that I’d need a name,” she muttered half under her breath.
    “Overlooked the need for a name?” he repeated.
    Georgie cursed, this time silently. Not only was her duly-appointed champion handsome, but his hearing was as sharp as his wit.
    “Now isn’t that interesting,” he was saying. “Let me guess, avoiding creditors?”
    “Certainly not!” she said.
    He scratched his chin, his fingers stopping at the deep cleft there.
    Georgie wished she dared to touch that same spot. Run her fingers along his jawline, following the thin scar until it came to rest on his lips.
    He smiled at her, and the movement broke into her reverie, which was straying dangerously into imagining what it would be like to kiss him.
    Georgie, stop it, she told herself. You need a rake, not a suitor.
    “Oh, come now,” he was saying. “Don’t you have a name?” He smiled again, one that curved his mouth into a kissable dream. “Why would a lady want to hide her identity? Let me see . . . Perhaps an old lover you wish to a avoid?”
    “Something like that,” she demurred. My future husband, to be exact.
    He reached out and took her hand. “Your name is safe with me. I’m leaving town in two days’ time and won’t have a chance to tell a living soul your secrets.”
    He was leaving town? Georgie thought she should be thrilled that it was unlikely she’d see him again, but she wasn’t.
    Especially with him holding her hand, his fingers entwined with hers, creating a feeling so intimate, she could barely breathe, let alone get out the one thing he wanted to hear.
    Her name.
    “Come now, what is it?” he repeated. “I can’t keep thinking of you as my deadly shod Cyprian.”
    Before she could laugh, a voice called out of the crowd, “Georgie! Georgie, what the devil are you doing here?”
    She immediately froze. Oh, this was disastrous. How could she have been discovered? And here, of all places?
    She swung around, ready to be denounced and hauled home in disgrace, but to her surprise and relief, a pair of drunk and raucous Corinthians were shaking hands and continuing their loud greetings.
    “Georgie, my good man! How the devil are you?” one said to the other.
    She let out a sigh, and then turned to find her companion studying her intently, one brow cocked quizzically.
    Her face must have shown every bit of fear and dismay that she’d just been caught.
    “Georgie?” he asked. “Is that your name? A rather unusual one for a Cyprian, don’t you think? Aren’t French names more popular over such a patriotic moniker?”
    “ ’Tis an old nickname,” she said, still glancing around.
    “It fits,” he told her. “Much better than Yvette or Celeste. Do you mind if I call you Georgie?”
    She shook her head. “No, not at all.”
    “Good, then we have that settled. And I am Colin, Lord—”
    His introduction came to a sudden halt when their path was suddenly