Read Online The Duke's Indiscretion by Adele Ashworth - Free Book Online

waited, anxious to depart, but unable to move away from the warmth of his body so close to her own. With fortitude, she asked, “Do we have an agreement, your grace?”
    â€œColin,” he corrected.
    She acquiesced. “Do we have an agreement, Colin?”
    After a moment of lingering silence, he replied, “I’ll consider it, Charlotte.”
    She noted immediately that he’d used exactly the same words she had the night he propositioned her in the theater, certainly intentional, and not at all the answer she wanted to hear. But then it wasn’t quite a rejection, either. She supposed she needed to allow him time to adjust to the idea. Marriage was, after all, a huge step for anyone.
    â€œI—I should leave. I need to be at the theater soon in preparation for tonight’s performance.”
    He stepped back without reluctance and formally waved his hand to let her pass. “Then don’t let me keep you from your adoring admirers.”
    She curtsied quickly and brushed past him. At the door, she paused and glanced back.
    He still stood gazing at her with his hands crossed over his chest.
    â€œWill you be there tonight?” she asked softly.
    His countenance became somber. Contemplatively, he asked, “Do you want me to be?”
    It seemed like a truly genuine question, and suddenly she wanted him to know how very much she relied on him for support and adoration from afar. “I always want you there, Colin.”
    She could have sworn he exhaled a shaky breath, his gaze searing hers. Then he nodded once, and murmured, “We shall see, Lady Charlotte. Good afternoon.”
    It was a clear dismissal, and she heeded it with a fraction of a smile upon her mouth. “Good afternoon, your grace.”
    With a lift of her skirts, she held her chin high and walked out of his study.

Chapter 5
    C olin rapped on the door of Sir Thomas’s office at the Yard, then walked in without waiting for a reply.
    He wouldn’t call himself angry, exactly, but the look he sported on his face and in his eyes must have displayed his agitation, for at once Sir Thomas’s secretary, John Blaine, looked up from his paperwork, his expression startled.
    â€œIs he in? I need to see him immediately,” Colin remarked as he began to stride toward the closed door of his employer’s inner office.
    Blaine stood and pulled down on his jacket, which fit him far too tightly at the waist. “He’s in, but I’d prefer to announce you first, your grace. He’s been quite busy this—”
    â€œThen do so at once,” he interrupted, his tone cooler than he’d intended.
    Blaine gave him a sideways glance through his large spectacles that reminded Colin of those worn byCharlotte—plain, thick, and completely unbecoming. But where Charlotte remained a beauty underneath, this man couldn’t be more unattractive, his face pulled tightly as if he were tense about life in general, his features reminding Colin of a racoon’s with his large, dark eyes, rounded cheeks, small thin lips, and a flat, receding chin. But he was apparently very good at what he did, as Sir Thomas trusted him completely. And appearance hardly mattered in the competent.
    Blaine knocked on the inner door, then turned the knob and peeked inside. “His grace, the Duke of Newark to see you, sir,” he said mildly.
    â€œLet him in,” came the fast reply.
    Before Blaine could acknowledge the response, Colin had already slipped past him, entering the inner office proper, taking only a quick note of the thin fog of tobacco smoke that enveloped the dark and musty room.
    Sir Thomas had been sitting, engrossed in paperwork illuminated only by a single oil lamp on the desk, but stood and bowed his head properly as Colin took a seat in an old and creaking wooden chair across from the man.
    â€œYou set me up, my friend,” Colin said a bit testily, ignoring the fact that Blaine stood