Nicole Jordan Read Online Free Page A

English countryside in January, a calculating young debutante had sneaked into his bedchamber while he slept and was caught naked with him by her avaricious mother.
    Feigning shock, Mama had immediately petitioned his ducal father, insisting that Thorne be forced to marry the girl. Redcliffe contended that he should do the honorable thing and accept his fate, but innocent of seducing the little schemer, Thorne had refused to be dishonorably trapped in marriage. As soon as he concluded his current assignment for the Guardians, he’d sailed for Cyrene to escape their connivances and his father’s hounding.
    Highly suspicious now, Thorne peered through his lowered eyelids at the interloper. She had stopped a short distance away—the moment he’d rolled over, in fact—and was staring at him as if fascinated.
    If she was a blasted husband-hunter, he would send her packing. And if not…
    He couldn’t deny that she was a beauty, with her delicate, fine-boned face, flawless ivory skin, and nicely curved body. Her high-waisted muslin gown of dark blue flattered her slender, shapely figure and firm, high breasts, and sent an immediate shaft of awareness lancing through his loins.
    She looked, however, to be a bit older than the usual debs who pursued him, perhaps in her mid-twenties. She wore her rich dark hair pinned up in a simple knot, Thorne noted, and her eyes, which were just as dark and lustrous, held awe and curiosity as she surveyed him.
    Deliberately he opened his own eyes fully and locked gazes with her.
    The impact made him feel an instantaneous heat—an involuntary physical response that came as a sweet, if unwelcome, shock.
    She felt the same sweet shock, he was certain. She had stiffened, looking wary and unsettled now, as if all her feminine instincts were on keen alert. Just as all his male instincts had suddenly roared to vibrant life.
    To Thorne’s further irritation, he could feel himself hardening. It was difficult to remain unmoved, though, when a lovely young woman was contemplating his body so intently.
    Cursing his swelling erection, Thorne pushed himself up on one elbow. “Do you realize you are trespassing on private land?”
    “Your servants said I might find you here.”
    Her low, husky voice sent a further charge of heat along his nerve endings. “Did my father send you?” he demanded. “If so, then pray let me inform you that I have no intention of wedding you.”
    She blinked at that. “I beg your pardon?”
    “The last young lady to see me nude claimed I compromised her and insisted that I wed her. If that is your aim, sweeting, you can turn around at once and take yourself away.”
    He watched as her sensual mouth thinned in a wry smile. “I promise you, my lord, you are safe with me. I have no interest in marriage whatsoever.”
    Her claim reassured him to a degree, yet Thorne couldn’t let himself relax. “You obviously have an interest in my body.”
    Color rose in her cheeks, and she looked flustered to be caught ogling him. “Forgive me. I was contemplating you with an artist’s eye…trying to determine how I would paint you.”
    Thorne’s lips curved in a sardonic grin. “Now
that
is a novel tactic no one has ever used on me before.”
    Her chin lifted with a trace of defiance. “I am perfectly serious. I am an artist.”
    He regarded her for a long moment. “If that’s true, then I suppose I should be flattered by your attention.”
    “It
is
true. You would make an admirable subject for a portrait.”
    “Is that all? You see me as one of your subjects?” He arched a taunting eyebrow. “You don’t feel the slightest urges beyond the artistic?”
    “I regret to disappoint you, but no, my interest in your male anatomy is purely objective.”
    “How lowering. I am mortally wounded.”
    Her wry smile held genuine humor this time. “I should think you would be pleased. By all reports, you have an army of eager females fawning all over you.”
    “A regiment, at the