Read Online Seducing the Duchess by Ashley March - Free Book Online Page A

Philip loped after her, his pace hindered by a pain in his right leg. He must have twisted it when he’d lunged for her.
    She skipped backward, her cheeks flushed and her smile wide as she beckoned him on with a wave of her hand. “Come now, Philip. You are hardly trying at all. I’m sure Fallon could run faster than you, and he’s nearly three times your age.”
    Philip fought a grin at the sound of Fallon’s muffled gasp of outrage behind her, near the front entrance.
    “I am only giving you a fair chance, my darling,” he said. “For when I catch you—”
    She turned around, her dark hair streaming down her back. “You shall never catch me,” she called over her shoulder.
    Fallon tried to block her as she reached the front door, but she feinted around him, her movements too quick for the old butler’s stiff joints.
    Philip was right behind her. His gaze focused on her retreating form as she jogged to the left, past the manicured lawn and down the far slope, toward the banks of the small stream which ran through the edge of his property.
    She disappeared from view. Philip increased his pace, wincing with each jolt to his right leg. As he topped the stream’s bank, he saw Charlotte cautiously picking her way across a fallen log.
    She must have heard him approach, because she glanced up with an impish grin, her arms held out to her sides for balance. “I thought you’d gotten lost.”
    The ground was slick beneath his feet as he hurried down. “I didn’t want to win too easily, that’s—”
    A grunt of surprise escaped him as his feet went out from under him, and he landed on his back. He tried to sit up, but his right leg throbbed in renewed protest. Groaning, he fell backward once again.
    “Philip?”
    He blinked up at the sky. Was it possible that was concern he heard echoed in her voice? For him ?
    He opened his mouth to assure her he was fine, but immediately thought better of it. Instead, he closed his eyes and let his head loll to the side.
    “Philip?”
    He heard a soft thud as she jumped to the muddied ground beside him. Her skirts swayed against his leg while she prodded him with her toe.
    “Do not think for a moment I believe your unconscious act. Have you forgotten I have four brothers? I’ve been taken in by much better ploys than this.”
    He sighed. At least he’d tried. “Have pity, woman. I’m in pain.”
    He turned toward her as she knelt beside him, her brow furrowed. “Did you hit your head? Here, watch my finger.”
    Perhaps he had. In truth, he couldn’t remember where he ached any longer. Her head was bent toward him, her beautiful blue eyes—those eyes which seemed to change shades moment by moment—focused on his as she peered at him in concentration.
    Her fingers snapped, jerking him out of his trance. “My finger, Philip. Follow my finger.”
    The movement of her mouth drew his attention to her lips. Those perfect, sin red, luscious lips.
    “That’s not my—”
    His mouth fused to hers, his hand pressed behind the nape of her neck, holding her still for his plunder.
    The taste of her was sweet, exotic, and heady, evoking memories of their wedding night long ago. Memories he’d forced himself to forget.
    “No,” Charlotte mumbled against his lips, but she didn’t try to push away, and Philip remembered how he’d driven her to the brink of ecstasy again and again, how the sound of her cries of pleasure—and she had cried out, whether or not she chose to admit it—had made his revenge all the sweeter.
    Philip angled his head, his tongue sweeping over the seam of her lips, and now, just as she had then, she welcomed the invasion—tentatively at first, then with greater passion.
    He’d given himself one night of victory to slake his lust with her tender, untried body. Afterward, he’d convinced himself he no longer wanted her.
    Philip used his other arm to draw her nearer, growled as the fullness of her breasts crushed against his chest.
    He had let her go,