Read Online The Duke's Deceit by Sherrill Bodine - Free Book Online

him off successfully since her father’s death. Surely she could continue to do so a while longer.
    He crossed the room to reach her, forcefully lifting her resistant hand to his mouth.
    Immediately the icy ball rolled through her middle, sending a shiver of revulsion up her arm. There was something new in Sir Robert’s eyes, a cruel insistence that frightened her. She had all she could do to endure the brush of his lips against her skin and maintain a fixed smile of welcome.
    “Mary, you’re looking particularly lovely today.”
    His words rang as false as his smile, which did not reach into his cold gray eyes.
    “Thank you, sir. Won’t you sit down.” She indicated the faded striped wing chair beside the worn blue velvet settee where she sat.
    Much to her discomfort, he chose to sprawl beside her, his leg brushing her skirt. She stiffened, sitting bolt upright as he cavalierly slid his arm along the back of the settee, as if he might touch her hair. He threw a disdainful glance at the tea service on the low table before her.
    “I could do with something a bit stronger!” He threw the rude words into the room, eyeing Lottie as a boorish employer might a recalcitrant servant.
    “Would you care for brandy, Sir Robert?” Mary inquired coolly, grateful to have an excuse to rise to her feet.
    He reached out to lock one hand about her wrist; she froze in rigid indignation, hardly knowing what to do. He was getting bolder with each meeting. If only Richard were present, or Uncle Ian, she amended hastily.
    “We need to talk, Mary. About your father’s debts.”
    Why had she never noticed before how cruel he appeared when his mouth curled in this cross between a sneer and a smile?
    “I’ll fetch Sir Robert’s brandy,” Lottie gasped with round-eyed fear. “I shall be but a moment.”
    Mary extricated her hand and sat as far from him as possible, busying herself with her own dish of tea.
    “You realize, Mary, all your problems could be so easily solved. You can’t have been blind these months to my feelings for you.”
    The oily, coaxing tones were almost amusing. First he intimidated her, now he was pretending an attachment. What could the man want? No debt was worth being leg-shackled to a person she despised.
    “Marry me and set all to rights,” he urged in a hoarse voice.
    She put her tea down and clasped her fingers together in her lap to cover their betraying tremble. “Sir, you forget, I am promised to another!”
    Her retort merely made him smile and sway closer. “He doesn’t even remember you. God’s blood! I was only gone a fortnight! Your affections can’t have been engaged so quickly.”
    The touch of his fingers brushing her cheek brought such a lurch of revulsion that she feared she would become ill.
    “Sir Robert—”
    He stopped her croak. “Mary, you know we belong together! Just think of your father’s dream. If we marry, your lands will merge with mine. This Richard can’t offer you that! But I can give you the horse farm your father wished for!”
    As if he could see into her heart and feel that uneven catch in her breath at mention of her father, he pressed his slight advantage. Before she quite realized what was happening, he held her shoulders cupped in his wide palms.
    “Cry off from this ridiculous entanglement. It’s false and you know it!”
    She sensed the instant her guilty expression gave her away by his sudden painful grip and the stunned widening of his cold gray eyes.
    “What’s really going on here?” he demanded harshly, yanking her into a cruel embrace.
    “My sentiments precisely.” Richard’s lazy drawl, laced with steel, sliced into the tension-filled room.
    Sir Robert dropped his hands abruptly, and she swayed to her feet, away from him.
    Richard filled the parlor doorway, with Lottie’s frightened face just visible beyond him in the dim front hall. Mud caked his hessians, and the wind had stroked his hair into tangles across his brow. His eyes were dark