Read Online The Hazards Of Hunting A Duke by Julia London - Free Book Online

your father. And if he disowned you, you could not give our children the things you had as a child. I daresay you would never forgive yourself.”
    She’d turned and looked at him pointedly. “And I daresay, neither would I.”
    Her response had stung him. He understood how women were taught to think of marriage—power and wealth meant everything, apparently even to Miranda. Yet the confirmation that his title and fortune meant more to her than he did cut like a knife.
    Now, as the Robertson meal was ending —just before he feared he would be driven to leap from the
    table and fling himself out of the windows onto Audley Street below —Lord Robertson suggested the
    ladies take their ices in the solarium with the duke. “I thought perhaps Lord Middleton and I might enjoy
    a cheroot. You do enjoy a good cheroot, do you not, my lord?”
    Jared glanced at his father, whose expression was so full of expectation that he wanted to scream. He shifted his gaze to Lord Robertson and smiled. “Thank you , my lord, but I must beg your leave.”
    No one said anything for a moment until Elizabeth made a small sound of despair, and the duke…well,
    the duke turned dark. A very unpleasant shade of red.
    “Please do forgive me, but I have another engagement I simply cannot miss,” he added, almost cheerfully. “It is a parliamentary matter.”
    “Middleton—” his father started, but Jared was already rising from his chair.
    “I had quite forgotten it until this morning, your grace,” he said pleasantly, and smiled at his host. “You will forgive me?”
    “Of course,” Robertson said, looking confused.
    Jared quickly went to the mother and took her hand in his. “Thank you, Lady Robertson, for a lovely luncheon,” he said, and turned to Elizabeth. “Lady Elizabeth, I have thoroughly enjoyed your company. I look forward to the time we might dine again,” he said, and took her hand, brought it to his lips, kissed her cold knuckles, and quickly let go.
    Elizabeth looked at her mother, her eyes wide with consternation, but Jared walked on, to the head of
    the table, passing a string of footmen who had, no doubt, be en brought out to impress him. He offered his hand to a stunned Lord Robertson. “Thank you again, my lord.”
    “But I thought…I thought we were to have the afternoon,” he said weakly.
    “Another time, perhaps,” Jared said, and bowed low. He scarcely looked at his father.
    “Your grace,” he said before he walked out of the room.
    Let his father make good on his threats. Jared was beyond caring at the moment, for he could not
    possibly endure another moment in that dining room. If he had to marry, so be it. But he would not, under any circumstance, marry Lady Elizabeth Robertson.
    He went directly to his club and sent word for Harrison to join him if he was able. When Harrison appeared an hour later, Jared felt restless, and given that the day was bright and unusually warm, he convinced his old friend that they should ride in Hyde Park.
    Naturally, he gave Harrison a brief account of the latest argument with his father and the luncheon he’d ruined.
    “Sounds frightfully tedious,” Harrison agreed. “Does he still threat en to disown you?”
    Jared laughed wryly. “Not only does he threaten it, I would suspect that as we are speaking, he is drawing up the order for the king’s signature.”
    Harrison smiled a little, then looked at his friend. “What if he carries through with hi s threat? Have you determined your course?”
    Oh, he’d considered it. Through many sleepless nights, he had wandered Broderick Abbey’s halls,
    considering it. He had his own title, his own seat. Granted, he did not have nearly the wealth his father had, and would lose the substantial stipend he received as the son of the Duke of Redford. But he was
    ready to face it—he had studied agriculture and was brimming with ideas for improvements to his estate. And besides, what he valued and wanted more than anythin g on