Secrets of a Viscount Read Online Free Page A

agree to marry her.”
    “ Yes, ye did. I asked ye if ye took tis woman ta be yer bride. Ye sed ye did.”
    This woman? This woman? He racked his brain. The smithy was right, confound it all! He hadn’t asked if he took Rachel or Belle to be his bride, he'd said this woman . Damn and blast! Lost in his lusty thoughts, he’d agreed to marry Belle. She’d even outwitted him by signing the register in her own name.
    “ Get into the carriage,” he barked.
    “ As you wish, dear husband.”
     

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
    May 1818
    London
     
    Isabelle sat still as Tilde, once a chamber maid, now acting as her lady’s maid, ran a heavy brush through her long red hair. She hated sitting for hours while Tilde did her best to get her ready for another tedious ball almost as much as she hated going to the ball itself. It would seem her folly regarding Viscount Belgrave nearly six years ago still made her a laughingstock across London Society. She closed her eyes and willed herself not to think of him again. He was the past, and Lord Kenton was the future—provided she couldn’t find another suitable match before the end of the Season.
    After her very brief marriage she had little recollection of the disastrous year that followed it, her sister was to be married and her family had gone to London for the Season. However, the rumors that swirled about Isabelle and the viscount were vicious as was the scorn she’d faced for fraudulently trapping a lord into marriage. It was so much that her parents feared Lord Yourke wouldn’t wish to marry Rachel and it was decided Isabelle would be packed off to Lincolnshire to be a companion to an older woman named Suellen Finch. During her time as a companion she met Mrs. Finch’s nephew, Edmund Roth, Lord Kenton.
    At forty-five upon their first meeting four years ago, Edmund was only three years shy of being three decades Isabelle’s senior, but that hadn’t stopped him from showing her undue attention when he’d come to visit his aunt. It wasn’t exactly loving attention, more of that of a friend. All the same, it was unwelcome. At first Isabelle had tried to put him off, claiming the difference between their rank and her scandalous past would make it difficult for him if word were to get out that he was associating with her.
    As the years passed, Edmund’s persistence continued. He easily dismissed the rumors of her trapping a lord into marriage. He even went so far as to openly call Sebastian a fool for letting her go. And as always, he’d end his tirade by smiling the biggest, brightest smile his lips could stretch into and announce how glad he was that Sebastian was a fool, for now Isabelle could be his prize. Prize. Isabelle’s lips twisted. She hated when Lord Kenton referred to her as his prize. He hadn’t won her. Moreover, she wasn’t an object to be claimed or won. She was a person—albeit a flawed one.
    Unfortunately for her, Edmund was no longer the only one who thought she was a prize to be fought over and claimed.
    A year and a half ago Lady Clearcreek, Sebastian’s mother, passed away, and unbeknownst to Isabelle, Lady Clearcreek had left a sizable trust to her. Three months ago, the still grieving Lord Clearcreek, came to see her in Lincolnshire and informed her he would be carrying out his wife’s wishes and arranged for the money to be put into an account in London for Isabelle.
    Just as the earl finished informing her of the money, Lord Kenton entered the room and Isabelle nearly groaned in annoyance as he fished for details from Lord Clearcreek.
    “ Now we can marry,” Edmund said jovially as soon as Lord Clearcreek was out the door.
    Isabelle stared at him, dumbfounded. It was one thing to have him regard her as a close friend, but to want to marry her and worse yet, for him to have some belief that she returned the interest was absurd. “What are you talking about?”
    Edmund plopped down in a brown leather chair and rubbed his hands together