His to Hold (Regency Scoundrels Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

rolled it over her tongue, and it came out as the barest of whispers. She shrugged at the caress in her voice.
    Maybe in different circumstances, she would have been willing to better acquaint herself with him. But as it was, she had to reach Her Ladyship’s Kindness . Unbeknownst to her father, at the age of fifteen, she had recruited her own spies and planted them at Her Ladyship’s Kindness , and at several of their other estates and plantations.
    Her spies had been ferreting information back to her ever since. In their little game of cat-and-mouse, she’d been forced to hire her own spies as a mere survival strategy.
    Her father had put her through hell and back, and she’d be damned if he’d rob her of the inheritance her mother had left her—the inheritance her father controlled until his death. She had informants on both sides of the pond, and on their scattering of estates in the Caribbean. Her grandfather never should have endowed his daughter with such a hefty dowry. If he hadn’t…none of Lady Susan’s money would have gone to her bastard of a father. Her father had used the money to amass a financial empire. As the youngest son of a British viscount, he’d inherited precious little from his father’s estate.
    Her spies had supplied her with invaluable information over the years, and she couldn’t make do without them. She had her now deceased grandfather to thank for giving her the means to employ these people. He had hated the fact that his daughter had married a monster, and lost her fortune to Geoffrey, upon marrying him.
    The last damning piece of information had reached her about a month ago. In the detailed missive, her hired man had told her that her father’s health weakened with each passing day.
    The news hadn’t come as a surprise to her. Her father gorged himself on wine and rich food. And he bedded a different woman nearly every night. He was a pig of the foulest sort.
    She had to reach Her Ladyship’s Kindness before he croaked it, because if she didn’t, she might not be there for the reading of the will. If she wasn’t present, she couldn’t be assured that someone would not tamper with it.
    She lost interest in their conversation as Rafe had quickly changed subjects. He was a sharp man, and he had probably guessed that she would be listening at the door. Ever so quietly, she walked toward the door, thanking God for blessing her with lightness of step. Extracting a pin from her hair, she was about to slip it into the lock when she heard heavy footfalls approaching.
    Backing away hastily, she slammed into a large trunk.
    “Bloody hell!” she cursed. The door swung open. In stalked her captor. Her arms were flailing about as she tried to keep herself from falling on her ass. Rafe reached out for her, and caught her before she fell to the floor. “Don’t think I’m going to thank you.”
    She pulled away from him, and served him with her best withering stare. It had always served to intimidate everyone else that she knew, and yet he stared back at her with a neutral expression on his face.
    Then, to gall her even further, he chuckled. The throatiness of it caressed her, and in some weird way it appeased her. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared up at him through half lowered lashes.
    “‘Course you wouldn’t thank me. Because then I’d start thinking you were a proper young lady, befitting a woman of your gentle birth.”
    She bristled even more at his sarcastic remark. He still held one hand behind his back, and when he held it out toward her, her breath caught in her throat. She reached eagerly for her rose coloured reticule, but at the last moment, he pulled it out of her reach.
    “You needn’t seem too eager,” he whispered, his voice at a dead calm. “I have taken the liberty of extracting your pistol. What bothers me, my dear, is why you didn’t choose to use it on me before.”
    Uneasily, she looked away from his penetrating gaze, and scraped the toe of