Read Online The Love Affair of an English Lord by Jillian Hunter - Free Book Online Page B

have his way with her.
    The cloaked figure in the garden shadows below was bending to snatch another clod of dirt to fling at her window. He straightened as he spotted her and broke into a grin.
    â€œOh, no,” she whispered in shock. Another character to add more chaos to her drama. She bit the edge of her lip and stared down at the man with whom she had danced and flirted outrageously only a few short hours ago. She had not believed him when he’d said he would not sleep until he saw her again. What an ignominious start to a love affair.
    Dominic, pacing directly behind her, but not in view from outside, stopped and pivoted on his scuffed boot heels. His large frame bumped up against hers. “What is it?” he snapped.
    She stiffened her shoulders at the hauteur in his voice. There was something disturbingly pleasant about the support of his body behind hers. “You know everything. Figure it out for yourself.”
    He lifted the outer edge of the curtain only far enough to peer down into the garden. Then he began to curse under his breath. Chloe raised her eyebrow at him in chastisement. Of course, being a Boscastle, she had heard far worse. In fact, she’d uttered worse herself.
    â€œThat isn’t your brother,” he said between curses.
    Chloe smiled, rather enjoying his exasperation. “No, it isn’t. It’s Lord St. John.”
    â€œWhat the hell is
he
doing here?” he demanded.
    â€œHow am I supposed to know?” she asked with an innocent look. “I only met him tonight.”
    â€œDid you now?” he inquired in an icy tone.
    â€œYes, I did.”
    â€œYou and your corset must have made quite an impression.”
    â€œDo you have something against romance, Lord Strat-field?”
    â€œAs a matter of fact, I do.”
    Chloe hesitated. “Well, some of us still believe in the possibility of love.”
    â€œAnd some of us, having been murdered in our beds, are to be forgiven if we are cynical.”
    â€œYou cannot hold a grudge against the entire world,” she said softly.
    He gave her a fierce look. “Why not?”
    â€œWell, because—”
    â€œSpare me your youthful idealism and get rid of your unwanted guest.”
    â€œWhich one?”
    â€œDo not provoke me,” he growled.
    Chloe glanced down into the garden with an enigmatic smile, which sent Dominic into another round of muttered curses.
    â€œGet rid of him,” he said through his teeth.
    â€œAnd how am I to do that?” she asked sweetly.
    â€œStop smiling down at him like a siren for one thing.” He studied the silhouette of her slender form in the moonlight, at the silk butterflies emblazoned on her curvaceous behind. “I suppose you kissed him, too,” he added in a dour voice.
    She refused to dignify his insulting remark with an answer, although part of her realized that the situation did appear suspicious. A handsome young buck throwing dirt at her bedroom window this late at night. Dominic would never believe she had not invited him. Her brothers wouldn’t have believed her either.
    â€œNone of this is my fault,” she thought aloud.
    Dominic grunted.
    â€œWell, it isn’t,” she insisted, scowling at him over her shoulder. “I didn’t invite him here any more than I did you.”
    â€œPerhaps you ought to keep your windows closed,” he said in annoyance. “Tell me, are you expecting anyone else to visit you tonight? Should I prepare tea?”
    â€œOnly if you have to sail to China to get it.”
    Dominic took another long look at her silk-draped figure before resuming his agitated pacing. Trust his luck to have a tart-tongued Helen of Troy be the one to discover he wasn’t dead. This woman was trouble, which, as he recalled, seemed to be a family trait. Well, more trouble he didn’t need. And yet here he was, in the thick of a murder plot, with the village siren and the village idiot on