Read Online Regency 09 - Redemption by Jaimey Grant - Free Book Online Page A

have
not seen any evidence that you are unworthy of my…friendship. But
they wouldn’t listen. Con mentioned a girl you seduced and left but
I told him it was nonsense, that you would never do such a thing
and—” she broke off at the expression on his face.
    “What?” Her pale brows
furrowed in confusion at his guilty silence. “Oh my. It’s true? You
seduced a gently bred girl and abandoned her? How could
you?”
    Dare stared at her, unable
to allow her to place all the blame on him as everyone else had. He
opened his mouth to offer what miserable little defense he had but
she forestalled him.
    Shaking her head, she
decided, “No, it is as I told Con. Nonsense. If you… granted her
your attentions, it was as much her fault as yours, I’m
sure.”
    He stared at her, one black
brow lifted in utter astonishment. “You would trust me…just like
that? No explanation or defense on my part. Just your own belief
that I would never seduce someone who was innocent.”
    Jenny offered a blinding
smile. “Of course. You may be maddening at times, even less than
gentlemanly at others, but you are not a scoundrel.”
    In that moment, Dare was
quite sure he loved her. No one, not even his own twin, had ever
taken his part in the whole miserable debacle. No one had trusted
that there were circumstances that led to his behavior, not the
least of which happened to be the fact that Belinda Markwell had
honored half the county with her attentions and he had simply been
yet another to fall for her dubious charms. It was moot that she
had been only nineteen at the time.
    “Thank you,” he told Jenny
now, from the bottom of his bitterly blackened heart.

    It may not have actually
been true before, but it was now.
    Dare glared at his
reflection. Seducer of innocents. Ruiner of reputations.
    The devil
incarnate.
    After being told that he
was honorable, what does he do? He seduces the one person who
actually believed he wasn’t like that.
    He groaned. Memories of
last night, Jenny, and pale moonlight spilling over silken skin
coalesced in his mind, making him stumble blindly for a chair. How
could he be so bloody stupid? He couldn’t even blame drink, as he’d
not had one all night.
    Raking a hand through his
sleep-mussed hair, he wondered bitterly if he had completely lost
his mind. Lady Genevieve Northwicke, beautiful, daughter-of-a-duke
Jenny, was no longer an innocent virgin eagerly awaiting her
husband’s induction into the mysteries of the marriage bed. Oh no.
She now knew exactly what would happen, with a few little extras
thrown in for good measure.
    He had taken his time with
her, made her want him as he wanted her and when she had
breathlessly begged him to take her, he’d readily complied, not
even giving a thought to the fact that her family was only a few
hundred feet away, dancing in the ballroom.
    And it had been everything
he could have dreamed. She was as passionate as he’d supposed,
giving as well as taking, making him ache just to recall her words
and actions. She’d excelled as a student, barely blushing at her
inquisitive queries that bordered on indecent.
    And he’d thrived in
teaching her things he was sure she would probably never learn from
whatever prosy old bore she ended up marrying.
    She should be pledging her
life to him, he thought with an inner snarl. But…
    He really was the cad
everyone thought him. And the worst part was, he couldn’t marry
her.
    No matter how desperately
he wanted to.
    She deserved a man who
could give her the world. A man who wasn’t tied down by obligations
that took him away for months at a time. A man worthy of her and
her station.
    A man who
wasn’t considered the black sheep of a family that had its
fair— un fair?—share
of balmy members.
    And if he wasn’t there to
distract her, she would have her chance at a better man.
    He
suppressed a growl at the thought of a better man touching her lily-white
skin, having the right to see her naked, bring her