Read Online To Tempt An Angel (Book 1 Douglas series) by Patricia; Grasso - Free Book Online Page A

died.”
    “Perhaps you possess more inner strength.”
    “Perhaps you are correct,” Robert said, his gaze on her softening. “I’m leaving now.”
    Angelica nodded but was unable to hide her disappointment.
    “I promise to return tomorrow,” Robert told her. He produced a leather pouch and emptied its contents, twenty pounds, on the table.
    “I don’t want your money,” she said.
    “Take it,” he ordered. “I want you to promise me you won’t gamble today.”
    “I promise.”
    Robert leaned close and planted a chaste kiss on her lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    Angelica nodded and walked outside with him. She smiled when he whistled for his horse.
    “Remember, angel,” Robert said after mounting his horse, “no grave robbing tonight”
    Angelica watched him ride down the dirt road toward Primrose Hill. She knew she shouldn’t have let him kiss her again. Her duty to her family was more important than her desire for love. What power did this Robert Roy possess that his mere touch made her forget both her duty and her revenge?
    Too bad they hadn’t met under different circumstances. Angelica sighed. As long as she was wishing, she might as well wish her father had never lost his fortune, her mother was still alive, and the duke’s son had come courting and fallen in love with her.
    With a heavy heart, Angelica walked back inside the cottage. Playing her harp would make her feel better.
    “What are you doing?” Angelica cried when she spied her father lifting the twenty pounds off the table.
    “I need a drink,” her father answered.
    Blocking the door, Angelica stood her ground. She refused to let him steal their money and kill himself with drink
    “Papa, put the money back.”
    “I need a drink,” he repeated. “It dulls the pain.”
    “You do not need a drink” Angelica insisted. “That won’t bring Mother back from the dead.”
    “Stand aside,” he ordered.
    “No.”
    In one swift motion, Graham Douglas reached out and shoved her so hard she fell to the floor. Instinctively, Angelica drew the dagger she kept strapped to her leg.
    “Would you murder your own father?” the earl demanded, standing over her. “You have the look of your mother but none of her gentleness.” And then he disappeared out the door.
    Angelica lay on the floor where she had fallen. Suddenly, the burden of her life seemed too heavy to endure a moment longer. She rolled onto her stomach and wept . . . for her father, for her family, for the fairy-tale life with a duke’s son that would never be.
    Her aunt and her sisters arrived home a few minutes later and found her there. “Angelica darling,” her aunt cried. “Are you ill?”
    Angelica rolled over and looked at them through tear-swollen eyes. She shook her head and tried to explain. “R-Robert—”
    “Did Robert dishonor you?” Aunt Roxie asked.
    “Yes, but that was this morning,” Angelica answered, rising from the floor with the aid of her sisters.
    “Why, that’s wonderful news,” Aunt Roxie gushed with excitement.
    “What did it feel like?” Victoria asked.
    “Don’t be a twit,” Samantha scolded her younger sister. “Lovemaking with a man like Robert Roy would be paradise on earth.”
    “This subject is unseemly for girls your age,” Aunt Roxie told them. She smiled at Angelica, saying, “You’ll marry, of course. Events are progressing as I saw in my vision.”
    “You had a vision?” Samantha echoed.
    “What did you see for me?” asked Victoria.
    Aunt Roxie gave them a quelling look.
    “The man does not want to marry me,” Angelica told her aunt. “He asked me to be his mistress.”
    Aunt Roxie dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “Darling, watch what a man does, not what he says.”
    Angelica gave her aunt a skeptical look. Robert had certainly seemed emphatic about his desire not to marry her.
    “I can see that you don’t believe me,” Aunt Roxie said, and then she laughed. “Think, darling. Haven’t I already