The Danger of Deceiving a Viscount by Julia London

Author:Julia London [London, Julia]
Language: fra
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2010-09-02T22:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

A t the end of that long summer day, the sun was just beginning its descent into night when Phoebe hurried through the parterres like a woman rushing to meet her lover. She could see him at the gazebo waiting for her, standing with one shoulder propped against the entrance, watching her walk across the grass.

He looked…magnificent. Virile in a way that made Phoebe’s belly do a queer little flip.

She had lost her mind, had let it turn to cabbage. What in God’s name was she doing? She was teasing a dragon, that was what, for this was no flight of fancy, no game of make-believe. He was stunningly real.

Summerfield was dressed in a black coat and gray trousers tucked into a pair of Wellington boots. The cut of his coat was exquisite, fitting his broad shoulders and trim waist like a second skin. His neckcloth was fashioned from white silk and was tied in an artful knot above the lapels of his black waistcoat. His hair curled in natural waves around his face, and as Phoebe walked across the grass to him—her heart beating wildly, her palms damp—his dark lips spread into a smile against his bronzed skin.

Heaven help her.

She worried about her gown, now indecently sleeve-less, but rather fetching to Phoebe’s eye. She’d put her hair up as best she could, holding it in place with hairpins tipped in tiny crystals that matched those that hung from her ears. When she’d finished dressing, she’d stood gazing into the mirror in her workroom, listening to the breeze rustle the leaves of the trees outside her window, imagining herself a woman of certain experience.

But she was nothing of the sort. She was a woman working very hard at playing a fool, each step carrying her closer to madness. She could assume a false identity and possess it, could play with a fire that could very well engulf her, but she couldn’t really change herself. She was still Phoebe underneath the façade, and Phoebe worried that she was an even bigger fool than she could have imagined, for her heart leapt at the sight of Summerfield, and all thoughts of disastrous folly flew out of her head.

Like magic, she was transformed into an actress on a stage, and her heart thrilled with the possibility of shedding the suffocating mantle of being a proper young miss.

As she neared him, he stepped down the steps of the gazebo. She came to a halt before him, smiling wryly. He held out his hand, palm up. Phoebe looked at his palm, the tantalizing bit of ink on his wrist, then at him. “I have agreed only to dine,” she said.

The corners of his mouth turned up. “You have my word I will not seduce your hand.”

She smiled with the devilish confidence of Madame Dupree. “It is hardly my hand that concerns me,” she replied, and slipped her hand into his.

He instantly lifted it to his mouth, pressing his lips against her knuckles. “How beautiful you are, Phoebe.

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