Wicked Lord: Part One Read Online Free Page A

toward
Adam, and then around him into the parlor. He arrived in the parlor
alone with the blond slut for a brief moment, and she instantly
dipped her bare cleavage at him with a whore's tempting gaze
fluttering his way. How quickly she forgot her other admirer,
Fanton thought. He was intrigued because she was a high society
piece and not a lower east-end whore.
    "Lord Fanton, you must come to the ball and
dance with me," she said, with husky temptations in her voice. He
smiled as he circled the room, circling closer to her.
    He began to wonder how fast she could run …
then he wondered whether she could really scream well. In some far
corner of his mind that acknowledged such things, he was surprised.
The urge was rising again so quickly. He reassured himself it was
simply the irresistible temptation of a noble bitch flaunting
herself at him. He'd never tried one of those before.
    And, she was offering …
     
     

Chapter Three
     
     
    "Ariel, please stay away from Fanton," Beth
remembered pleading with her only friend. Then she'd declared aloud
to Ariel, damned the consequences should anyone overhear and it get
back to Fanton, "He is not a good man."
    That had been thirty minutes ago, and Ariel
had gaily laughed and patted her hand, declaring everything would
be all right. Ariel had danced off with Adam, and Beth had thought
she was safe. However, Beth discovered now she was gone, leaving
Adam holding two glasses of punch Ariel had asked him to fetch.
    "I've been around the room once, Beth, and
she's not in the ballroom," Adam declared, setting the punch
glasses down on a nearby table. He turned back to her, while
swiping a thatch of sandy brown hair out of his eyes. "Damn," he
cussed lowly.
    "I am so tired of trying to warn her away
from him, Adam. And she will not listen and simply take my word for
it," Beth said with frustration heating her words.
    "I know," Adam replied, looking down on her.
"There comes a time when we should just …"
    Beth gazed up at him as he left the sentence
hanging and in her mind, she finished it. Give up and she will
do what she will do. But instead she said, "I will look for her
in the ladies’ retiring room."
    "And I will circulate through the upstairs,"
Adam offered.
    Beth touched Adam's arm. "We will meet back
here. One of us will drag her back here if we have to."
    Beth watched Adam's smile as he started
away, saying back to her, "We will find her."
    She watched Adam with a worried gaze as he
climbed the elegant staircase at the Valtimer mansion. Immediately
she decided she couldn't keep putting Adam in the middle of the
situation she had with Fanton. She turned toward the conclave of
ladies’ lower-level retiring rooms.
    "After I find you, Ariel, I shall break off
our friendship this very night," she muttered. She would do
something she'd not considered for a very long time. She would give
up her doomed search for a husband and she would apply to teach at
a school for girls.
    "That will take me out of your reach,
Fanton," she continued beneath her breath. It would leave her
brother, so full of potential, an unfettered life to live to his
desires and not be worrying about her constantly.
     
    ***
     
    "Come, Lady Ariel, walk with me in the
gardens under the full moon," Fanton drawled, massaging the lady's
slender neck from behind, with wisps of her blond hair curling over
his moving hand.
    "But he is such a gentleman, and he's gone
to fetch me punch. I really should wait."
    Fanton thought she spoke without any true
conviction as his fingers tightened on her neck and he felt her
begin to pull away from his hardened grasp. No, no, noble
slut.
    "Wait," he called. "There is a new game
gentlemen and ladies play who are courting that I want to teach
you," he offered quickly, forcing a touch of teasing into his
voice.
    He felt his lady-prize stop withdrawing as
she leaned closer to him. "Courting game?" she asked, now nearly
breathless. He was so brilliant and she was such a slut, he
thought,