Defiant: 5 (Noble Passions) Read Online Free Page A

haven’t seen you for days,” he said. “What have you
been doing?”
    “Nothing.” How could she say hiding from you ?
    He grunted. “You’ve had another offer.”
    Sophia did not roll her eyes, but just barely.
    “Ewan,” Violet said softly. “Not here.”
    He frowned at his wife. “Then where? When? She’s been hiding
from me.”
    Blast. He’d figured it out.
    “Who was this offer from?” Kaitlin asked with a skeptical
expression on her face. Bless her. Between them, Kaitlin and Violet were her
only defenders.
    “Dittenham.”
    Violet blanched.
    Sophia gaped. “Dittenham?” He was a good ten years her
senior.
    “Seriously, Ewan? Dittenham?” Violet looked aghast. “He
courted me . Years ago.”
    Ewan patted her hand. It did not relieve his wife’s horror. “He’s
a good man.”
    Kaitlin grimaced. “He’s a dandy.”
    “Does his mother approve?” Violet asked in a syrupy tone.
    “It doesn’t matter. He’s handsome and young—”
    “Hardly a young buck any longer.”
    “And he has ten thousand a year. He will keep Sophia like a
princess.”
    Violet nodded. “ If his mother approves.”
    “Violet, please. She’s said no to every offer. And Dittenham
is insistent.”
    “Dittenham stinks.” Sophia hardly expected her pronouncement
to incite titters around the table but it did.
    Ewan went red in the face. “Sophia Fiona St. Andrews!”
    “Well, he does.”
    Violet and Kaitlin nodded.
    “He does.”
    “Rather hideously.”
    Ewan slammed his hand on the table. “His odor is not an
issue here—”
    Violet shook her head. “I rather think it is. Heavens,
darling. A woman has to like the way a man smells to…” She flourished a hand.
    Kaitlin nodded. “It’s a very basic thing.”
    “Really?” Edward entered the conversation for the first
time; he’d been preoccupied wiping bisque from his inexpressibles. “Do you like
the way I smell?”
    Kaitlin wrinkled her nose. “At the moment, you rather smell like
lobster, but generally speaking, yes. I do.”
    This pleased the duke and he kissed his wife. With more
passion than was generally called for at the dining table.
    Ewan frowned. “I hardly see this as an issue.”
    “Because you’re a man, darling.” Violet patted his arm. “Sophia
isn’t interested in princes or dukes or ten thousand a year. She wants passion
and love—”
    “Passion?” Ewan was clearly disturbed by the prospect of
Sophia ever having it.
    That disappointed her more than the Dittenham falderal. Why
should she not have passion in her marriage as he did? Some great love? Or
adventure like Ned? Or something worth waking up for.
    “She said no to a prince, for Christ sake. There is no
pleasing the girl. Dittenham is perfectly respectable. A fine match.” His gaze
gored her. His chin firmed. A shiver raked her. She knew that look. “Dittenham
it is.”
    “No,” she croaked through the bitterness clogging her
throat.
    “Ewan!”
    He ignored his wife’s demur, his gaze intensifying. “Yes.”
    “I won’t marry him.”
    “You will.”
    Sophia stood and threw her napkin onto the table.
    “Where are you going?” Ewan barked.
    “I have a megrim,” she barked right back.
    “But what about Dittenham?” he called after her as she
strode from the room.
    “Dittenham,” she snorted, more to herself than to him. “Dittenham
be damned.”
    All of them be damned.
    If her brother had his way, she could be consigned to a
deadly dull marriage with a man who smelled of fish for the rest of her
days, never having known the thrill of a great love.
    To hell with that.
    She was going to find it, this adventure. And she was going
to find it on her own.
     

Chapter Three
     
    The news that Sophia had yet another suitor did not come as
a surprise to Ned but it had, certainly scuttled his appetite. He leaned back
to let the footman clear his plate.
    “Well, now you’ve done it,” Violet said.
    “Me?” Ewan squawked. “What have I done?”
    Kaitlin blew out a