Read Online When the Duke Returns by Eloisa James - Free Book Online

man’s eyes to the waist. Her impossibly small, delicate waist. And then above that, to the way her breasts swelled, with no hoops, just delicious, pink flesh against the military braid of her—
    He wrenched his eyes away.
    What was he doing? He didn’t care about women’s clothing. Nor the body within. Valamksepa would say such things were mere frivolities.
    â€œGood morning, Isidore,” he said, once the door closed behind the butler.
    â€œDuke,” she said, with a bend of her head.
    â€œEven my mother didn’t address my father with such formality in private.”
    â€œGood morning, Cosway,” she said, meeting his eyes. Her eyes were almond-shaped, and so beautiful that his heart skipped a beat.
    A pulse of annoyance followed directly afterwards.
    He didn’t want a wife so beautiful that every jackal for miles would be slavering at her heels. No wonder his mother started babbling when she learned that Isidore was at Lord Strange’s house party. Every hound in five countries must have been sniffing after her.
    One might worry whether she had lost her virginity—but no. Isidore’s eyes were clear and true. Disdainful…annoyed…virginal. She had waited for him. There was something about that fact that gave him a queer feeling.
    â€œMy given name is Simeon,” he said.
    â€œWe hardly know each other.” Once you got past her beauty, there was another thing about her. She was angry.
    He’d spent years curbing his bodily impulses—but every inch of his body was telling him like a drumbeat, she’s yours, yours, yours…take her! Every bit of native caution, learned from years of dangerous living, was on the alert.
    He could do without her.
    It would ruin the quality and calmness of his life to have Isidore Del’Fino as a wife. She had turned around and was now sitting down on a little sofa, pulling off her gloves. Her fingers were slender, beautiful, pink-tipped.
    â€œDo you know,” he said, sitting down opposite her, “I think we should discuss the question of annulment.”
    She gasped, her eyes flew to his, and one of her gloves dropped to the floor.
    â€œYou must have thought of it,” he said, more gently. He picked up her glove and dropped it back in her lap.
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œIf you would like an annulment, I would not stand in your way.”
    She blinked at him for a moment, and then said, “I don’t understand you.”
    He didn’t understand himself. He’d been offered one of the most beautiful women on three continents, and he was throwing her away. But she was trouble. The skin prickling all over his body told him that…as much trouble as he’d ever encountered, and that included the crocodile who almost chewed off his toes.
    â€œI know that I behaved in an extraordinarily ungracious way, wandering around foreign parts and not returning to consummate our marriage. The least I can do is offer you another option, should you wish to take it. My mother has made it vehemently clear that I am unfit to marry a proper gentlewoman.”
    Her eyes rested on his trousers. He wasn’t wearing breeches. He didn’t mind baring his lower leg when he was running, but he simply couldn’t get used to slipping into stockings. His mother had shrieked, of course. Apparently no one wore trousers except for artisans and eccentrics.
    He had replied with the obvious truth: it seemed that he was an eccentric.
    â€œEccentrics and robbers!” his mother had added. “Yet even they wear white trousers!”
    â€œI am wearing a cravat,” he said to Isidore now.
    He couldn’t read her face. She had obviously noted the fact that he wasn’t wearing hair powder or a wig. “Itried on a wig with three rows of little snail shells over the ear. I looked like a lunatic.”
    There was just a suspicion of a smile at the corner of her mouth. If he could find rubies that