Lisette Read Online Free

the
Marquis of Wolford. And while he is a steady sort, impressively
intelligent, he’s also a man of the world and he wed an
unconventional bride.”
    “True. But even should I be invited, I am
starting to feel the ass for showing up where Lisette doesn’t want
me.”
    “You still want her?”
    Roughly, Elisha said, “More than ever.”
    In his mind were a thousand images of her,
aside from how ravishing she looked at the ball, images with the
backdrop of autumn hues, the sight of her on horseback, in
trousers, riding through the woods with that hair in a braid and a
flush to her skin. Laughing, teasing with her brothers, at
billiards, at cards, or running up the stairs, passing him as he
had descended, with her hair rippling nearly to her waist, and
wearing a simple skirt and blouse—at times those aqua eyes meeting
his for a split second.
    There were images before, before he had gone
to Wimberly. They made him follow her to that sophisticated salon
that evening. He had been observing Lisette for a while before he
knew she was the rakehell’s sister—one of those wild Wimberly
offspring. She did not attend many of the stricter balls, but went
to the livelier and exciting ones—the ones mostly forbidden girls
her age.
    He had been fascinated with her. Not only
with her open expressions and full laughter, even in a park filled
with disapproving society matrons, but by the way she moved. When
close enough, the way she talked; blunt, witty, but also with
passion. At the museum, on Bond Street, it became the highlight of
his week if he spotted her.
    That is how Smith discovered it, by observing
him, and by witnessing how he could not seem to keep his eyes of
her.
    Of course, Smith understood why.
    That man cut through his thoughts again with,
“Will you try one last thing before giving up completely?”
    “What?” Elisha finished the whiskey and
stood, taking off the shirt and tossing it on a trunk at the foot
of the bed.
    Smith followed him into the bathing chamber
where Marston washed his face in a pan and then dried it.
    “Go and see her, tell her you are there to
give your regards to the graces, and wish them well, thank her for
her hospitality. Tell her—that you wish her well also, that you
will not trouble her with your attentions further.
    Walking back into the bedchamber, Elisha shot
him a raised brow look. “Do you want to write all of that
down?”
    Smith grinned and leaned a shoulder against
the post. “You’ll remember and carry it all off with ease. Just be
sure you put…passion… into the thing.”
    “Goodnight, Smith.” Elisha looked at him
pointedly.
    The man nodded but was still smiling when he
left.
    Lying on the bed, hands stacked under his
head, Elisha played out how such a scene might go. When he was
satisfied, he closed his eyes. He saw one of her slow smiles in his
mind’s eye, and the way she lifted her hair off her nape.
Everything in him stirred, but he pushed it down and sought
sleep.
    * * * *
    Lisette sat in one of the private parlors at
her father’s house. It was mid-evening. She had slept like the dead
after that ball, and too much champagne. She had been dragging when
her mother summoned her downstairs and then she had told her
Marston wished to speak with her.
    Half in panic that he was going to do
something drastic—like propose, no one could be more
dumbfounded—particularly she, who had cut up, protested, been rude
and obvious in her rejection of him—when he gave a quiet and
eloquent speech, telling her all that he had relayed to the duke
and duchess, thanking the family for their hospitably at Wimberly,
and congratulating Deme and Haven.
    Subsequently, from his place by the mantle in
front of her, he had turned those silvery eyes at her and added,
“Your mother informs me you are all departing for Wimberly, and
since it is doubtful you and I shall be in company again, I wanted
to relay to you my well wishes—for whatever you endeavor to do in
life.”
    He did that