A Lady's Guide to Kiss A Rake: Misadventures of the heart Read Online Free

elopement?”
    “Oh, he has disowned me,” Madeleine said with a bright smile, causing Jo to chuckle. “I’ve often wondered, Lady Josephine, how you became such good friends with my husband?” Madeleine asked, the curiosity in her tone unmistakable.
    Jo raised a brow, surprised by the question. “He’s never told you?”
    Lady Madeleine shook her head.
    “He’s probably too embarrassed to say,” Jo teased.
    “I take it you will not entertain me with the details either?”
    “Oh no,” Jo said raising her hands in the air, “and deprive Wes of regaling you with the tale himself? I would never be so heartless.”
    “I guess I will just have to find a way to retrieve the information from him,” Madeleine said on a whimsical note.
    Holly, the third and youngest of Belle’s cousins, appeared so suddenly by their side that Lady Madeleine and Jo all but jumped out of their skins.
    “Lady Madeleine, how lovely to meet you at last!” Holly exclaimed with a bounce in her step. “I do apologize for my forwardness but if I waited for my cousin or one of her friends to introduce us,” she gave Jo a pointed stare, “I would wait forever!”
    Lady Madeleine’s wide eyes met Jo’s amused ones. If she hadn’t met Belle’s cousins yet, she would get an earful from one of them now. With poor Lady Madeleine’s attention seized, Holly provided the perfect opportunity for Jo to glance in the direction of Craven. Now, for the leading act.
    Under the pretense of boredom, Jo angled her body away from the girls, right in the direction of Lord Craven. With slow precision her gaze drifted over the faces in the crowd in what would appear as casual perusal, slipping passed Craven and over to the gentlemen on his right, only to return back to him as she caught his regard.
    From across the room their gazes locked, and Jo allowed a hint of surprise to enter her features, just as Belle had tutored her. It wasn’t so hard since he possessed the face of a Greek god, all chiseled jaw and high cheekbones. Handsome in a classical way. She’d been wrong about his hair color, however. Reddish brown hair framed his perfectly carved face, every angle made to enhance his beauty. Eyes as blue as ice gazed back at her and a shiver of apprehension stole over her. Not black then. Even from where she stood all-consuming heat slammed into her. This man possessed the ability to set her aflame and turn her to stone at the same time. His mouth, however, gave pause. A cynical curve lined that luscious mouth, giving the impression of a permanent snarl. No, not a man who suffered fools gladly.
    Jo had half a mind to retreat, but her inner voice mocked: Are you afraid of a mere man?
    Well, no, but he did seem all too powerful and not a man to be trifled with. But foolishness won out and she dropped her gaze to his chest, letting it slide over his broad shoulders, which bespoke of great strength. Beneath all those clothes, his chest would be as hard as a boulder. He would have strong arms, too, perfect to carry a damsel, she mused.
    Her smoldering gaze dipped even lower, devouring his long muscled legs until they disappeared into his perfectly polished hessian boots, before it made its way back up to his chest again, a slight upturn of her mouth now planted on her face. Those strong legs would carry a damsel up any flight of stairs without so much as a hint of strain.
    After her thorough perusal of his body, Jo allowed her gaze to lock with his once more for a brief moment before she turned away, affectively dismissing him from her mind. Or at least she hoped that was the impression she presented. Those blue eyes had turned predatory with her last glance, and they would haunt her sleep tonight.
    Too enlivened to follow Holly and Madeleine’s prattle about a poor match some lady made, Jo only listened with mild interest. Her brain mulled over whether her smolder had actually looked like a smolder and not like she was in pain. Soon enough she would learn