Lord of Temptation by Lorraine Heath

Author:Lorraine Heath [Heath, Lorraine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062100023
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2012-09-24T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

“The ladies are all atwitter,” Sarah said as she cornered Anne in the ladies retiring room.

“Ladies are always atwitter,” Anne responded coolly. She’d needed a moment alone to regain her composure. Lie, lie, lie. She’d needed to be away from the dance floor so she wasn’t watching Tristan waltzing about with Lady Hermione. He smiled at her; he spoke with her; he was holding her in his arms only moments after doing the same with Anne. She wasn’t jealous. That would be ridiculous. But she didn’t much like seeing him with another lady. Especially as he seemed to be enjoying himself so much.

“You danced with Lord Tristan,” Sarah said.

“I’m well aware with whom I danced. He wasn’t in disguise, for goodness’ sake.”

“He’s dangerous, Anne.”

I’m well aware of that, and in ways you can’t even imagine. “It was merely a dance.”

“You weren’t here when he and his brothers returned two years ago. They were savages.”

“Because they reclaimed what was stolen from them?”

“It was the manner in which they did it. They burst in, uninvited, to Lord David’s ball and ordered him to leave the residence.”

“It was their residence, was it not? It was Easton House, wasn’t it, which belonged to their father and thus his son, the next duke?”

“Well, yes, I suppose if one were to be literal about—”

“I don’t see how one could be anything else.”

Sarah glared at her. “The residence aside, they made quite the spectacle of themselves. Why the eldest brother almost choked his uncle to death.”

Anne wasn’t certain she could blame him for such an action.

“And poor Lady Lucretia has been in seclusion ever since,” Sarah continued.

Their uncle’s wife. “She’s a widow now, isn’t she?”

“Quite. After her husband’s mysterious death. Slipped from a tower, in the rain. Supposedly.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I think they killed him.”

She didn’t want to admit that she could quite easily see Tristan killing someone. But not without very good reason.

Tristan stood in a darkened corner of the terrace and smoked on a cheroot. Dancing with Lady Hermione had been an exercise in frustration. The silly chit talked incessantly. She invited him to ride with her in the park, to have dinner with her family, to dance with her again. He’d made up one excuse after another. Perhaps it would have been kinder in the long run not to have danced with her, not to give her any hope at all that more could be between them.

Two years ago, he had wanted nothing more from her than a bit of innocent flirtation. He’d certainly never considered wooing her into his bed. She was a child. She didn’t have Anne’s allure.

Now, Anne . . . damnation, but he was obsessed with thoughts of her. She invaded his waking hours as much as she did his sleeping ones. He would be studying charts or discussing with merchants the possibility of carrying their cargo—and there she would appear. He thought he should be envisioning her hair draped over her nude body or her slender form writhing beneath him.

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