Read Online The Sweetest Revenge by Dawn Halliday - Free Book Online

used him: for temporary gratification. When it was over, he ceased to think of them, and he was certain they forgot about him, although his vanity secretly desired that they held on to some pleasant memory of the encounter.
    In the end, of course, there were certain things even he would always remember. Images flashed through his mind: the gentle graze of teeth over his earlobe, erect little nipples stained with berry juice, crimson lips panting his name over and over: Leo. Leo. Leo.
    “Yes, I care what becomes of them,” he said gruffly. “Of course I do. But our liaisons have little impact on their lives.”
    “That is a convenient way to liberate yourself of responsibility, Leo,” Lady M said dryly.
    “It is so easy for you, isn’t it, Lord High-and-Mighty?” Mistress Jane said, her voice full of scorn. “You flit from one woman to the other like a dissatisfied bee, but are you truly so naïve as to think it is as easy for us?”
    “Well…ah…” In truth, he had never put much thought into the fates of the women he’d bedded. This entire conversation was highly irregular. Never would he have envisaged himself in this odd position: bound and blindfolded, nearly naked, speaking to strange, angry, unknown ladies of his previous acquaintance about the women he’d possessed carnally. “I am careful,” he finished lamely.
    Lady M snorted. “Careful of what?”
    His face burned. He had a sudden urge to dump the basin of water over his head.
    “I am careful not to spread disease nor plant my seed. I am selective in my choice of ladies. I would not deliberately bed a virgin, for instance.” He swallowed, hoping they had no evidence to the contrary.
    “But you have.”
    Damn . He ground his teeth. “Accidentally. And only twice.”
    It was a small lie. The first time he had bedded a virgin was not an accident. The second time was a terrible mistake. After that, his guilty conscience had produced extreme measures of vigilance, and he had not touched a virgin since.
    Silence stretched, as thin as the most delicately blown glass, and Leo loathed shattering it. What would they demand from him next? He felt soiled by this conversation, by this humiliating situation as a whole.
    “You are lying to us,” Miss Juliette said softly.
    Lady M’s shoes clapped dully against the flagstones. “You destroy women’s lives without regret, without even a thought. You cause unhappiness, grief, shame. Are you so utterly muttonheaded as to be unaware of it?”
    He hesitated. An unsteady anger rose from the pit of his stomach. He was only slightly lying. He never caused unhappiness, grief, or shame. Most important, he was not muttonheaded.
    He shifted away from Mistress Jane. He could not lose his head in the presence of the three of them as he had yesterday; to do so would risk them leaving him. He released a measured breath. “You are wrong. I give women pleasure.”
    “But afterwards, you walk away. You take, Leo, you do not give!”
    “What would you have me give them?”
    After a brief, chilly silence, Lady M said, “Your name.”
    “Oh, that’s rich! Last I heard, polygamy was illegal in England.” He pictured himself with a harem of wives. All the women he’d ever bedded, crowded and naked, overflowing a sumptuous eastern palace, its gold-domed turrets glinting in the desert sun. The image brought an unbidden smile to his lips.
    “Do you believe you are being witty, my lord?” Lady M asked, her voice ice cold. “Clearly you have never considered monogamy.”
    His smile slipped a notch, then turned bitter. “You are wrong in that, my lady.”
    He had considered monogamy, but society itself, at once his only solace and worst enemy, had driven him from it. Young as he was, he’d been unable to stop it. God knew he’d tried. But he’d failed. He’d been too late in coming for her, and she’d died.
    He shifted his body and fought the urge to rise to his feet. The blindfold weakened him. He had never considered