Beguiled by a Baron (The Heart of a Duke Book 14) by Christi Caldwell

Author:Christi Caldwell [Caldwell, Christi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Christi Caldwell Incorporated
Published: 2017-06-15T18:00:00+00:00

Vail didn’t deal in unscheduled meetings. To do so with buyers and sellers conveyed too much of an eagerness and jeopardized the profits one might earn. Such a lesson had been learned during his first transaction when he’d operated under a different set of rules…that punctuality demonstrated one’s honor and character. That had been the last appointment he’d ever arrived on time to.

Taking those desperately requested meetings, however, was an altogether different matter. Early morn appointments and unexpected visits bespoke a seller’s desperation and to not grant that one was the height of business folly.

Never before had he thought of declining one of those sessions. Until Bridget. What was it about the lady that made him want to damn the seller in his office and remain with her?

Mayhap it was her total lack of artifice. With her cleverness and acumen in the antique book industry she stood apart from the lords and ladies he dealt with daily. By her admissions and faint pleading, however, she didn’t recognize her worth for what it was—greater than all those miserable peers who’d dare make her feel inferior. But it was also something he understood…because he’d once felt precisely as she had. As a boy, all Vail had been so very focused on was how different he was from the lords and ladies of Polite Society. He’d hated his lot and resented that he and his mother had been treated beneath those fancy members of the peerage. Too many nights he’d lain abed, staring at the plaster ceiling of a temporary home imagining himself becoming powerful like the duke who’d sired him.

In time, he’d found pride in the work he did and the battles he’d fought against Boney’s men. When he’d returned from war and been titled for those acts of bravery, the last thing he’d given a jot about was Polite Society. He’d naively forgotten what it was to live on the fringes of that world as Bridget did.

And she didn’t see her own inherent worth against those lesser people.

Reaching his office, Vail stopped at the edge of the doorway. To carry thoughts of Bridget into his meeting only posed a distraction. He forcibly thrust aside her visage and masking his features, entered the room. “Lord…”

The blonde-haired, cloaked woman at the center of the room, spun to face him.

Adrina.

“Vail,” she greeted in her singsong voice that had so enthralled him as a young man. Tall, willowy, and in possession of a halo of golden curls, she’d always epitomized a flawless English lady. Now, he found himself preferring Bridget’s understated beauty. Adrina cleared her throat. “It is so very good to see you.” Three years away from thirty, she was older, more mature than the girl who’d married an old earl after Vail had gone off to war, and yet her golden tresses shimmered with the same shine. Only her eyes appeared harder, sadder. Once that would have gutted him.

“My lady,” he said tightly. “I don’t take meetings based on lies.” He reached for the bell-pull but she rushed over in a rustle of black satin skirts.

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