Taste of Temptation by Cheryl Holt

Author:Cheryl Holt [Holt, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Love Stories, Regency Fiction, American Light Romantic Fiction, Fiction - Romance, cookie429, Extratorrents, Regency novels, Romance - Historical, Romance: Historical, Kat. Romance, American Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781101187951
Google: X_TbiBMX8-sC
Amazon: 0425235149
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2010-05-31T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

“EVERYONE noticed.”

“So what?”

Michael glared at Tristan, who was sitting like a king on a throne at his library desk.

“We’ve been through this a hundred times,” Tristan scolded. “Must we go through it a hundred and one?”

“I’m a bloody earl,” Michael snapped. “If I want to dance three times with the same girl, I don’t see how it’s anybody’s business but my own.”

“It’s because you are an earl that it matters.”

Michael turned to the window, his attention captured by the sight outside. Jane was walking across the garden. She’d paused to remove her bonnet, and it dangled at her thigh, the ribbons threaded in her slender fingers. Standing as she was, with the sun shining down and the green colors of the park spread behind her, she looked so pretty that his heart pounded with pleasure.

“I’ve explained this to you over and over,” Tristan said. “I don’t know how to make you understand.”

“Try again.”

Michael was being deliberately obtuse.

He was aware that a man of his station had to be cautious with women. Until he was ready to wed, he could dabble with whores, but that was as far as his amorous adventures could take him. If he showed too much interest in any one female, hopes were raised; and in his world, expectations had to be acted upon.

Jane Hamilton was the sort of person any fellow would love to have as a mistress—but not as a wife. Never a wife.

Her ancestry alone kept her from being suitable. Then there was her father’s scandal, her poverty, her lack of a dowry. She brought nothing to the table. No money. No property. A bad reputation and no influence.

The worst strike against her was their affair. Though he had been the one to suggest and pursue it, her deficient virtue ensured that she could never be his countess.

He knew all these things. He realized all these things. And they galled him.

He liked everything about Jane, and while she wasn’t from the upper echelons of society, she was hardly a tramp, and he couldn’t treat her as he would a doxy. Rules had to be followed, customs maintained.

Jane had never mentioned the subject, but it was obvious she imagined he would shuck off the shackles that bound him to an aristocratic marriage. He wished he was that brave and chivalrous, but the sad fact was that he was the earl of Hastings and a peer of the realm. He would do what was best for the title, for the family, and for the heritage he’d inherited from his father and his father’s father before him.

But he couldn’t stop dallying with her, couldn’t stop wanting to be with her. He was in deep trouble, charmed and smitten and besotted, and he yearned to confide in Tristan, to ask his advice, but Michael didn’t dare confess what he’d done.

Tristan would be furious, and he’d send the Hamiltons away. Michael would never see Jane again.

“It was foolish of you,” Tristan nagged, “to dote on her.”

Michael whirled to face him.

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