Read Online The Betting Season (A Regency Season Book) by Jerrica Knight-Catania, Catherine Gayle, Ava Stone, Jane Charles - Free Book Online Page B

get to kiss her. Some other man would get to make love to her. Some other man would get to bask in her sweetness.
    Jason remembered the feel of her skin against his lips, of the way her heart beat faster at his touch, the way her sweet rosewater scent had enveloped him. Had Heath not stumbled upon them when he did, Jason might very well have succeeded in seducing her.
    How would you tell her that she’ll be Lady St. Austell and not Lady Colebrooke?
    How indeed?
    Damn Heathfield straight to hell for planting such ideas in Jason’s mind. Marriage, for God’s sakes.
    Jason scowled. Was he seriously entertaining thoughts of offering for her? Him? Jason York, the wicked, debauched Earl of St. Austell?
    When she learned who he was, she’d never speak to him again, not if her panic in Hyde Park was any indication. And he couldn’t marry her as Colebrooke and tell her the whole truth later. No clergyman would go along with that plan. Besides, both the Marquess of Berkswell and Lord Harrison Casemore did know who Jason really was. They weren’t likely to keep their mouths closed, let alone agree to such a union.
    But…
    Gretna. The answer came to him in a flash.
    What if he convinced her to run away with him to Gretna? He could marry her as Jason York. She wouldn’t have to learn the truth about him until after she loved him…
    But then she’d hate him and she’d never forgive him.
    No, no. It was best not to consider marriage at all. There was no easy way around it.
    I couldn’t have lived knowing she was married to another man, that she would have shared another man’s bed, borne some other man’s children.
    “ Damn you!” Jason growled.
    “ I am sorry, sir,” the footman said hastily.
    Jason glanced at the servant. “Not you. Go away.”
    “ But you said…” The man gestured to Jason’s coffee cup.
    “ I said ‘go away’.”
    The footman scrambled from the room at the exact moment Jason realized his future was doomed.

    Pippa stared at the handkerchief in her hand. The “B” she’d worked on so diligently was now a jumbled mess of thread that looked more like an unruly “O” than anything else.
    “ What’s the matter, dear?” Great-Aunt Eunice said as she hobbled over the threshold.
    Pippa lifted the handkerchief up for a brief inspection then tossed it back to her lap. “I don’t think I can do anything right these days.”
    Her old maiden aunt nodded as though in agreement. “A handkerchief for Berkswell is nothing to get worked up about.”
    No. The cursed thing was just more evidence of Pippa’s ineptitude. “You don’t mind forgoing the rest of the Season and returning home with me, do you, Aunt?” she asked as the old woman settled into her favorite high back chair.
    “ I’ve always been wherever you children needed—”
    Someone cleared their throat from the doorway, and Pippa looked up to find Davis regarding her kindly. “You have a visitor, my lady.”
    She shook her head. “I’m not receiving visitors today, Davis.”
    The butler smiled tightly. “Yes, Lord Colebrooke has been turned away. Twice. But Lady Heathfield seems most adamant.”
    Twice. Had Jason come to see her twice? Why, so he could continue to make a mockery of her? Pippa’s blood began to boil anew. The unscrupulous, disingenuous blackguard. Of course, he didn’t know she was on to his little game, did he? Well, he could go hang for all she cared.
    Davis cleared his throat again, drawing Pippa’s attention back to him. “About Lady Heathfield, my lady?”
    Lady Heathfield? Pippa did owe that particular lady an apology. Mortifying as it would be to give it, she supposed she’d better get the thing over with. She nodded once. “Very well, Davis.”
    Pippa glanced over at Great-Aunt Eunice to find her more alert than normal. “What do you suppose she wants?”
    “ An apology for my behavior at her ball,” Pippa grumbled. “And she is owed it.”
    “ I do hope she isn’t as fearsome as her