Irresistible Read Online Free

elegant. She had never felt passably elegant or frivolous or lovely. Well, not at least since the days of her youth, when she had deluded herself into believing that she was pretty enough to compare with anyone.
    The truth was that she was dumpy and frumpy and unattractive and—and in a sorry state of self-pity indeed. She smiled in self-mockery and set herself to amuse Sarah with her conversation. She ignored Lass, who sat beside her chair breathing loudly and gazing unwaveringly into her face.

TWO

    HIS FRIENDS HAD ARRIVED in town before him, Nathaniel discovered as soon as he entered the house on Upper Brook Street. There was a note awaiting him, written and signed by Rex but obviously composed when all three of them had been present, suggesting that if he arrived as planned on that particular day, he meet them for an early-morning ride in Hyde Park the following day.
    The day, as he saw when he had awakened and crossed his bedchamber to throw back the curtains to look out on it, stretching as he did so, promised well. The sky was clear of clouds and from the look of the trees there was very little wind. He went into his dressing room and rang for his valet.
    He was the first to arrive at the park, though his friends were not far behind him. There was a great deal of handshaking and backslapping and laughter. There was no friendship quite like that of one’s long-standing male friends, Nathaniel decided. They had shared danger and discomfort and victory and life itself together for a number of years. The bonds would be lifelong.
    Yes, it certainly felt good to be back in town. Not that Hyde Park in the early morning felt particularly urban. Its sweeping lawns and thick groves of trees and interlacing paths, its grazing animals and chirping birds could easily have beguiled the beholder into imagining himself to be in the park of some grand country estate. But there was something about Hyde Park, something intangible, that proclaimed it quite unmistakably to be at the center of the busiest, the grandest, the most dynamic city in the world.
    There was that energy he had felt yesterday when his carriage had entered the streets of the city. It was London.
    After the initial flurry of greetings, they rode for a while without a great deal of conversation, exercising their horses by giving them their heads, though a race inevitably developed and ended with much laughter.
    “Now, what was the wager?” Eden asked. “One hundred guineas each to the winner, I do believe?” Eden had won the race, of course.
    “Are all your dreams as pleasant, Ede?” Nathaniel asked.
    “You had a start of a good length and a half over me anyway, Eden,” Kenneth said, “and beat me by a length. By my reckoning that makes me the winner. Yes, I believe I heard one hundred guineas too.”
    “Have you heard the rumor that all Cornishmen are mad, Nat?” Rex asked. “I begin to think it is more than rumor. It must be the sea air in that part of the country. Ken used to be as sane as the best of us.”
    “Which is not, when you come to think of it,” Eden said, “saying a great deal, Rex.”
    They rode onward at a more leisurely pace, enjoying their surroundings and one another’s company.
    “Well, Nat,” Rex said after a while, “how have you enjoyed playing dull and respectable country squire for the past two years?”
    “It is the old case of the pot and the kettle,” Eden said, cocking one eyebrow. “You scarce stir from Stratton Park these days, Rex.”
    “But at least Rex has the excuse of being an old married man.” Kenneth grinned as he held up a staying hand. “As am I, Eden, of course. But Rex has been busier, one must confess. Moira and I still boast only one son, whereas Rex ... Well, it may not be two sons. The second one could be a daughter. There is no knowing yet, is there? We will be kept in suspense for another—what? Four months, Rex? Five?”
    “Closer to five.” Rex chuckled. “Catherine has convinced herself