My Lord Rogue Read Online Free Page A

of scandal that could be bantered throughout the coming months in a season rife with communication. He was also quite aware that his ailing wife learned everything the wagging tongues, eager for a morsel of gossip, launched with the purpose of destroying often innocent lives. Never mind his wife blamed herself for the failure of their arranged marriage, for the loss of their only child, and her subsequent frailty.
    Lady Edwina Danbury could never know the truth. That knowledge would surely destroy his fragile wife. And neither could Gillian.
    Silence stretched agonizingly long between them until Gillian turned. His heartbeat quickened as she lifted her small, delicate, gloved fingers and pushed back her veil, revealing startling fair skin and the generous lips that had haunted his dreams. Her dark velvety brown eyes slowly rose to meet his . Brilliantly intelligent, the dull light in her gaze revealed she had changed — exponentially so . Her movements precise, almost timed too perfectly, unnerved him and her practiced machinations held him enthralled. What was this power she had over him? How did she still manage to steal his breath?
    “I thought if I ever laid eyes on you again, I’d cease to breathe.” He was thankful she hadn’t fainted dead away. She was standing too close to the edge of the box and that would have been hard to explain.
    “And yet her e you are, standing, breathing. You give yourself little credit—”
    She lifted her hand and stationed it between them like a fence rail, as if she feared he took her words as an invitation to step closer. He’d gone too far — again. Damn! What was it about this particular woman that unhinged him so?
    Gillian was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Country life and marriage to a spy hadn’t diminished her beauty but had keenly enhanced her features. She wore her black hair parted down the middle and swept back neatly behind her ears. Her heart-shaped face led his gaze directly to intelligent arched brows, a pert nose, and the very same rose-tinged bow-shaped lips that had proclaimed her love. To further accentuate her delicate, aristocratic looks, pearl earrings dangled from delectable earlobes, tempting lobes he’d dreamed of kissing, suckling as he moved agonizingly lower to her nape.
    “The credit, Lord Danbury, goes to my husband.”
    Her brutal reminder gutted him. “Credit? Ah, yes,” he said, remembering where his words had trailed off. He cleared his throat. “Where is the baron? I half expect him to suddenly accost me from the shadows.”
    Gillian’s expression turned grim. “I left the baron at home.” Her chin flexed strangely. Her brows lifted a notch.
    At home? He’d warned the man never to let her out of his sight. Something wasn’t right. He felt it in his bones, sensed it with uncanny awareness.
    “Gillian,” he said, reaching for her hand.
    She snatched her fingers back as if stung. “Baroness, my lord.”
    “I know who you are and from whence you come. I’m the last man on earth who needs to be reminded.”
    Her eyes misted momentarily. Or had he imagined it?
    “Perhaps not.” She arrowed her lips into a frown, once more seeming imperfectly at ease.
    “Why are you here?” There. He’d said it. Taking a deep breath to regain control, Simon swallowed back amazement at how quickly his desire for a woman he couldn’t have had risen to the surface. It was a rush of passion so brutal, all-consuming, he could barely withstand it.
    She didn’t answer . A gamut of conflicting emotion s assailed him . “Why are you here, Gillian?” he asked again, using her given name to ply home his concern. “You know it isn’t safe.”
    Gillian stepped backward and peered down at the assembling crowd as if searching for someone in particular. If not Lucien. Who?
    “I am here on a personal matter,” she confided, her voice holding an undecipherable edge.
    Personal matter? Her father was dead , and she’d never indicated any