Duty Before Desire Read Online Free

heels in Bath to pay any heed to London gossip. If I have in any way discombobulated her, you can be sure she’ll let me know.”
    “Yes, you can be sure she will.” Eli stood behind Deborah’s chair and rested his hand on her shoulder. “Both of us wrote to her today.”
    “What, both of you? One missive wasn’t enough?”
    Deborah parted her hands in her lap. “We wished to assure your lady mother that we were aware of the situation.”
    “And that we would handle it,” Eli pronounced down the length of his aristocratic nose.
    “Handle?” Sheri echoed. “How must I be handled?”
    In her soft, soft voice, Deborah said, “You must marry, Sheridan.”
    For a while, no one spoke. In the silence, the aroma of flowers became oppressive. Sheri’s head began aching in earnest, his skull beating in sympathy with the angry pulse of his wound. He wanted that laudanum, after all.
    He opened his mouth to formulate an argument, but the marquess cut him dead with a look. “Your days of indulging your every base desire are at an end, Sheridan. If it were just myself, I’d cut you loose and let you fornicate your way through all of England.” At his wife’s gasp, he winced. “Sorry, my dear,” he hastily apologized. “But it’s not just me,” he went on, addressing his brother once more. “It’s Mother, and Deborah, and the boys. You’re ruining our family’s name and causing them embarrassment. Deborah has persuaded me to grant you one last chance: if you wish to remain an acknowledged member of this family, you will do your duty and wed.”
    Damn Elijah!
    Knowing there would be no winning with his brother, Sheridan turned to his sister-in-law. “Sister,” he began, his tone conciliatory, “please forgive me for causing you any shred of humiliation. You know I’d never willingly do you harm.”
    The woman’s lower lip trembled. She made a little, muffled sound.
    Sheri went to where she sat and, repressing his own whimper, knelt before her like a penitent seeking absolution. He took her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Her nose reddened. “I see now that things have gotten out of hand. I’d no idea Lady Tyrrel would make such a to-do this morning, and I recognized at once that there would be scandal. I see now, though, that this is not the first time my behavior has brought you grief, is it?”
    Sniffling, Deborah shook her head. “Oh, Sheridan, if you’d heard what the ladies all say. Half of them think you’re the Lord’s gift to womankind, while the other half think you’re the devil incarnate. No matter which side they fall on, every one of them loves nothing better than swapping tales about you:
Where will Chère Zouche be tonight? Who is he wooing now? Have you seen his new coat? Can you credit the way he looked at Lady Whistleton at the ball? Do you suppose he’s taken her to bed?
It never ends!” She cast a hurt look at the flowers arrayed around the room, stand-ins for the women who’d subjected her to their tattle.
    “Well, it ends now,” he vowed, squeezing her hand and gazing earnestly into her eyes. “There’s no need to bring marriage into things; I will be a reformed man without all that, I swear.”
    Deborah shook her head. “I pity you, Sheridan—truly, I do. You’re missing out on the good things in life, and you don’t even realize it. Goodness knows you love women and they love you right back, but we’re nothing more to you than …” A fierce blush flooded her face. “Bed partners,” she finished in a whisper.
    “That isn’t so,” he protested. The pain in his flank drove him to hands and knees, his face almost to the rug, so that now he was practically groveling at Deborah’s feet. “I live to make women happy—not just
that
way, either. Don’t look at me like that,” he yelled. “Your pity is insufferable.”
    His affairs had been for the pleasure of the women he bedded—his own, too, naturally—but he’d never once touched a woman selfishly.