Read Online The Secrets of a Scoundrel by Gaelen Foley - Free Book Online Page B

dashing Order hero.
    Well, she mused, if tonight with Nick was any example of what that would have been like, then clearly, she was better off.
    If only he weren’t so beautiful. If only his midnight eyes did not beckon her with his loneliness and need . . .
    Damn it. She shook her head and stared off into the bleakly bare garden, silvered with moonlight. She was going to have to do better than this, be more careful about keeping things businesslike between them.
    The wine at dinner and the darkness of this seductive autumn night was obviously too dangerous, too tempting, when she already had a secret weakness for this man—as though she were still an infatuated seventeen-year-old.
    It would not do.
    She cringed to wonder how great a fool she might have made of herself. But no matter. If he had detected her desire for him, it didn’t mean that she had ever intended to act on it. Besides, she would remedy her error merely by treating him all the more coolly on the morrow.
    In any case, it was official: Her father’s problem agent was her headache now.

 
    Chapter 5
    T he next morning, Gin went down to breakfast with her plan for the day firmly set in her mind.
    After making their final preparations this morning for the dangerous mission ahead, they would set out for London this afternoon.
    By tomorrow night, they should be ready to proceed to the Topaz Room in Southwark, where they would confront Hugh Lowell, the owner of the notorious gambling hell.
    But when Gin stepped into the dining room and inquired of her staff whether Lord Forrester had appeared yet this morning, Mason informed her that His Lordship had been up since dawn and had gone out to the hot springs.
    Gin went motionless, hearing this.
    Though she had told Nick he was welcome to bathe in the hot springs—that, indeed, it would be good for him after all his injuries—she had never meant for him to go unchaperoned.
    Her immediate response was a tightening of fear in her chest, then her heart began to pound. God, the cave was so close to the front gates and the perimeter of her property.
    What if he had lied to her staff, merely using a visit to the hot springs as a pretense to cover his escape?
    She was instantly furious at herself for trusting him. An agent willing to abandon the Order itself would surely not hesitate to desert her on her investigation. It was clear he hardly took it seriously, after all, since she was naught but a lowly female. His indignation about the medical exam and their quarrel last night would have only fueled his desire to escape.
    Waving off an offer of breakfast, she clipped out a command that her horse be saddled at once and brought round. Why, oh, why hadn’t she specified to him and her staff that he was not to leave the house unsupervised?
    Why hadn’t she set a guard on him at all times, the way the graybeards had advised and, in truth, had assumed she would do?
    Because I wanted to trust him, she thought as she marched out through the entrance hall and snatched her cloak off the wooden coat-tree in the corner.
    She wanted him to take this chance to stand up and be the man her father had known Nick had the potential to become. He was so beautiful and fearless, yet so bloody difficult . . .
    She wanted to believe the best of him. That there was still a man worth saving behind the cynicism, bravado, and despair. A man of honor.
    A true knight of the Order.
    We’ll see. Pulling on her coat, she stalked outside into the gray November drear.
    Her tall, powerful dapple gray swiveled his fine head, pricked up his ears, and snuffled a horsey greeting when he saw her. “Morning, Trebuchet.” She gave him a brisk pat, nodded tersely at the groom holding the bridle, then sprang up onto the sidesaddle, gripping the pommel with one hand. The groom handed her a riding crop.
    She nodded to him to back away, then she was off, cantering briskly across the acreage of her estate for the hot-springs cave, and praying she had not