Dangerous Loves Romantic Suspense Collection Read Online Free Page A

you seeing another man while he was fighting—dying—for our Mother England? That’s what the gossips will think, you know. Is it true?”
    He stopped pacing to tower over Elsbeth.
    She clasped her hands in her lap, squeezing them tightly together to keep from trembling. She reminded herself she’d never seen him strike anyone, but then again she’d never seen him so angry, his cheeks so red.
    Surely, he wouldn’t strike her.
    “You must tell me who this—this Dionysus is,” he demanded. “I will call the cove out if I have to.”
    “Nooo,” Lady Baneshire wailed.
    He waved away his wife’s distress. “He will do the right thing by you. I will insist upon it. He will marry you if that is what society demands.”
    “Marriage?” Elsbeth’s head turned icy cold at the horrifying thought. The green urns sitting on shelves in the alcove swam in and out of view. “I cannot marry.” Lord Baneshire appeared to have floated away.
    Elsbeth drew a fortifying breath and straightened her shoulders. All she could seem to think about at that moment was the first time her husband had flown into a rage. He’d tossed her onto his bed, twisted her long hair in his hand, ripped at her gown, and—
    “No! I will not marry again!” Never again .
    Her uncle crouched down beside her chair. “You will if I demand it. As your closest living male relative, I’m responsible for your actions.” He took her hand in his. His blue eyes, eyes so much like her mother’s, softened just a touch. “This is the only way to protect your name and to keep the ton from turning against my family. So tell me, Elsbeth, who painted that portrait of you?”
    It was difficult to look her uncle in the eye and say what she had to say. It was even harder to keep the tears from falling. Somehow she managed both.
    “I—don’t—know,” she said with great care.
    Lord Baneshire’s expression darkened. He dropped her hand and stood with a rush. “You refuse me? It’s a fool’s folly to protect the blackguard who did this to you—who did this to your family. He has brought ruin upon us all.” He prowled the green parlor like a tiger in the depths of a jungle. “Everyone out.” He pointed to the closed double wooden doors. “I must speak to Elsbeth alone.”
    Olivia and Lauretta’s faces drained of all color.
    “Papa,” Lauretta cried, “it’s not her fault.”
    “She honestly didn’t know about that painting. I saw her. She appeared as shocked as the rest of us,” Olivia wailed.
    “Out!”
    “Come girls.” Lady Baneshire led the two teary-eyed girls toward the door.
    “Please, Papa, please. Don’t send our Elly away.” Large tears dropped down Olivia’s pretty, round cheeks.
    The parlor door closed with a loud clank. “Send the chit away,” he grumbled as he marched back toward Elsbeth. “If only a scandal could be so easily snuffed. Girls!” He waved an angry arm in the air. Elsbeth winced as if he’d dealt her a blow. “I’ve been cursed with girls! Not a blasted son in the bunch!”
    “I will leave your home if you wish it,” she offered bravely. Truly, she had no other place to go other than out into the chilly London streets, but she would leave if he asked it of her.
    “And then what would you do?” he asked. The redness of his cheeks deepened. “You would run away from your responsibility? From protecting my children’s futures? You would abandon them to the worst of the gossips?”
    “No! No, I would never abandon Olivia and Lauretta. I only wish to—”
    “Then tell me his bloody name!”
    Lord help her, he was going to hit her. She slipped from her chair and rushed for the door only to have her uncle grab her arm and spin her around.
    “You won’t escape so easily,” he warned, and tossed her back into the chair. “And I had such high hopes for you. I had thought you had bloomed into a gentlewoman much like your mother. Now there was a lady with a steadfast and trustworthy head on her shoulders. A