Read Online Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase - Free Book Online Page B

and she was shocked to discover that they were not dark brown or black as she’d at first supposed, but blue, deep blue.
    He sat in the chair nearest hers and leaned forward, studying her intently, rather as though she were another portrait whose quality he was assessing. “What dreadful thing have you done?”
    Again she had to fight with herself not to squirm.
    Scrutiny from men she was used to. What she wasn’t used to was being studied as though she were an abstruse line of Armenian. She felt stiff and uneasy. She was aware of heat spreading over her cheeks.
    A blush, of all things! She, blushing!
    She was disconcerted, that was all, she told herself. He wasn’t what she was used to. He was reputed to be a scholar. He was reclusive. What surprise was it, then, if he was eccentric, too?
    â€œPerhaps you don’t go out much in Society,” she said.
    â€œEnglish Society, do you mean?” he said. “No, I spend little time in England.”
    â€œI’m divorced,” she said. “The former wife of Lord Elphick. It was a great scandal.”
    â€œAnd does he harbor ill will, do you think?” he said. “Do you suppose he might have hired men to kill you?”
    Remembering Quentin’s visit, and the sudden interest in those old letters of Elphick’s, she’d considered the possibility and quickly discarded it. If Elphick had her killed now, he might get into trouble he wouldn’t be able to get out of. She was no longer his despised slut of a wife. Here on the Continent she was a glamorous divorcée with important friends. Her untimely demise would cause an uproar. It would be scrupulously investigated. Not to mention that Elphick couldn’t be sure what arrangements she’d made about the letters, in the event of her death. No, killing her was too risky for him.
    â€œGood grief, no,” she said. “I’m more useful alive. He looks so much nobler and more virtuous in comparison to his wicked wife. He can pose as brave and forbearing. No, killing me would spoil his fun.”
    â€œAnd dying would spoil yours, I reckon,” he said.
    Surprised, she laughed. She had not thought she could laugh again, so easily, so soon after a narrow escape from rape and a grisly death—but then she was resilient, wasn’t she?
    She became aware of an odd stillness about him that seemed to tauten the very air of the room. But she’d scarcely noticed it before it vanished.
    â€œOne’s first theory is that they were robbers,” he said. “But what a curious way to go about it. It would have been so much easier to knock you unconscious and strip off the jewelry and toss about your skirts for your purse. But this was meant to cause you as much suffering as possible in a short time. I saw it happen from my balcony, and it wasplain that the assault was planned. Since violent crime is rare in Venice, one must conclude that this was deliberate, aimed at you. The motive, though…” He shrugged, in a most un-English way, drawing her attention to his big shoulders.
    â€œYou sound like a lawyer,” she said tightly. “You seem to know a great deal about criminals.”
    â€œYou sound like someone who doesn’t like lawyers,” he said. “You seem to know a great deal about them.”
    â€œI’m a divorced woman,” she said. “My father was Sir Michael Saunders, the man who, single-handedly, nearly destroyed the British economy a few years ago. Yes, Mr. Cordier, I’ve had a great deal of experience with lawyers. I don’t particularly like them. I don’t particularly hate them, either. For a woman in my position, they represent an unfortunate necessity.”
    â€œAh, yes,” he said. “Your position. A divorcée.”
    â€œDivorziata e puttana, ” she said tautly. A divorcée and a whore.
    He leapt from his chair as though one of Satan’s imps had pricked his arse with a