Read Online Suzi Love by Embracing Scandal - Free Book Online Page B

small feminine body spread beneath him. Within seconds, he was hard and aching and sure as hell not thinking clearly.
    He’d forfeited any right to see Becca’s body, unclothed and glorious, when he’d left. Even if he was prepared to fall to his knees and beg her forgiveness, he couldn’t give up his vow of celibacy. Not if he wanted to show his peers how well he was managing the St Martin’s estates and reclaim his position as a respected social leader. Dukes were supposed to set gentlemanly examples. To avoid gossip and scandal. Sometime in the future he’d no doubt keep a mistress but he’d ensure his liaison was so casual and so discreet that none of the ton’s tabbies would notice. For the present, he was doomed to a private and celibate hell.
    Visions of hell flames engulfing him still didn’t prevent him asking, “What have you learned from the infamous Madame Faberge, font of all lovemaking knowledge?”
    In his smugness, he’d failed to notice her eye colour deepening to a stormy sea-green and her face reddening. Oh, hell. She licked a finger and dragged the moistened tip along the scooped neckline of her morning dress. He tracked its path with breathless attentiveness.
    “Men don’t regard it as making love.” Her seductive murmur sent fiery shocks through every nerve and centered them in his groin, like sharp stabs from heated prongs. “Rather, as satisfying lust. Women are vessels to receive — ”
    “Enough!” He swung to one side as his erection, hovering the past hour at half-mast, swelled to full arousal. After an attempt at tugging his coat flaps together, he mistakenly glanced her way. The infuriating minx had the audacity to grin.
    “But I haven’t described all the ways Madame’s girls are taught to pleasure men.”
    “Dammit, did they also explain that taunting a man in this wanton fashion stretches his restraint?” His voice deepened. “If you don’t cease, right now, I’ll toss you on that rug and demonstrate the numerous ways I know to pleasure a woman.”
    Becca gulped, glanced down, and the bulge in his trousers swelled to an even more uncomfortable size. She stepped forward with a hand outstretched.
    “Cayle, I’m sorry. May I do something to help?”
    The mixture of seductress and innocence drove him over the edge. Thrusting her hand away before it touched its mark, he turned his back. For two long minutes, he surveyed the limited merits of a country painting on the far wall before he could face her.
    “Becca, never, and I repeat, never, ask a provoked man if you can assist him. Men … even many gentlemen … will take advantage of you.” He scrambled for a distraction from a situation he should never have allowed. Where the hell was his mind? “Do you know when, and where, my hypothetical entrapment into marriage is to take place?”
    “At Lord and Lady Hetherington’s house party in two week’s time.”
    Shock and horror paralysed him. He needed to digest the implications of this. If indeed Becca’s information was correct. And, if he trusted what she told him.
    “Coincidental that my stepmother insisted I accept that particular invitation, and that I not ride my stallion, but journey with her in the carriage.” Becca frowned, looked worried, but stayed silent. “Is that who’s involved? Julia? She’s as cunning as she is greedy.”
    “That is why you need our protection from this marriage net.”
    With a sigh of resignation, he nodded. “Regardless, I alone will question the inner circle, while you confine yourself to discreet questioning amongst the ladies.”
    “That … that is patronising, unreasonable, and — ”
    He pressed his fingers to her lips, firmly. “On the matter of your safety we shall agree, here and now, that I’m in charge. Or, I shall exclude you entirely.”
    As soon as he freed her mouth, she blurted out, “Exclude me, you arrogant — ”
    Once again, he covered her mouth. “Calling me names does not alter the fact that you