Training Lady Townsend Read Online Free Page A

looked over in surprise. Hunter stared back, trying to act as if it didn’t prick him.
    “Ah well,” said Arlington. “All the ladies love Warren. He puts on a good show with that fancy hair and that devilish tailor of his. I wouldn’t take it personally.”
    “I don’t take it personally,” Hunter scoffed with a bit too much conviction. “I don’t give a whit if she lusts after every man in Christendom. I’m no pillar of fidelity. I expect I’ll continue in my old habits after we’re wed.”
    “Then stumble home to your wife looking—and smelling—as if you just rolled out of whore’s bed?”
    “Not a whore, my friend. A specialized lady of a fine erotic house.”
    “I know the ‘erotic houses’ you frequent,” Arlington mused. “I know the names of every one of your ‘specialized ladies,’ and I tell you, you’ll need to be discreet. Laudable Lansing won’t tolerate a philandering son-in-law.”
    Hunter didn’t much care what the Duke of Lansing would tolerate. He’d spent a decade training a coterie of women to cater to his sexual tastes, and he wasn’t going to throw them all away because of a forced marriage to an uptight prude.
    Bounteous bosom or no, he doubted the virginal Lady Aurelia would submit to erotic punishment, or sodomy, or oral copulation. He wouldn’t give up these pleasures, for he found them essential to his life’s happiness. He’d only have to be more careful in seeking them out. He’d pay a little extra for his partners’ silence if he had to, to reduce the gossip after he was married. Once his new wife learned what he was into, she’d probably pay the courtesans herself to keep him out of her bed.
    And if she complained about his extramarital activities, he’d explain that it was the way of the
ton
, and that she had no power to control him. He’d be a decent husband, as far as he could, but he had no intention of living like a monk only to protect her sensibilities.
    “We ought to arrange a decadent orgy the night before the wedding,” said Arlington. He paused, considering. “Two nights before the wedding, perhaps.”
    “Don’t arrange anything of the sort. I’m planning to remain celibate that entire week, so I can muster up enough lust to deflower my bride.”
    “A week? You’ll never manage that.”
    “I can survive a week with no women. It’s the least I can do for Lady Aurelia, to show some stiffening in my affections on our wedding night. How about an orgy the following week? I’ll be desperate for pleasure after I take a few trips between those ice-cold thighs.”
    Arlington grimaced. “We’ll have to be awfully careful about such things. Maybe the orgy’s not a good idea. Lansing is a stickler for proprieties and he could make your life—and your father’s life—a bloody hell if you rub him the wrong way.”
    “I’ve already rubbed him the wrong way.” Hunter stared morosely at his future bride. “Which is why I have to be here playing the lovelorn fiancé like a damned milksop.”
    “Go and talk with her, would you?” Arlington nudged him the lady’s way. “I threw this party so you could prove to the quality that you’ve been reformed by this engagement, publicly at least. Why don’t you go kiss some hands and smile at some simpering ladies?”
    “Bugger you, Arlington.”
    “Then after, we’ll visit some houses of iniquitous congress, where you can reward yourself for your impeccable manners and respectability. Go on. Don’t stand here talking to me.”
    Hunter heaved a sigh. “Very well. I’m off to court the Lady Aurelia, if she doesn’t run away from me first.”
    *** *** ***
     
    Aurelia’s whole body went tense as Lord Townsend ambled across the lush expanse of garden. Her future husband looked well enough in his fine embroidered coat, his black hair neatly tamed. Even his expression gave no cause for offense. His dark brown eyes were soft and his features arranged in a semblance of pleasant greeting, but