Antonia's Bargain Read Online Free

made her want to scream.
    Did she dare meet Gideon again? She opened her eyes and stared at her reflection.
    In the mirror she looked as wanton as the Fairy Queen as she had sucked her lover’s
    cock. With a shudder, Antonia removed the rest of her clothing and dressed in a
    demure white nightgown. She climbed into bed. Her solitary life in rural Wales had
    shielded her from temptation for too long.
    Until she’d told Gideon Harcourt about her sexual ignorance, she hadn’t realized
    how angry she felt about her family’s ambitions to marry her off. None of them had
    expected her to be left such a large personal legacy from her grandmother. Before that,
    they’d been quite content to leave her moldering in the old manor house acting as her
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    grandmother’s sole companion and nurse. Now everything had changed and her cousin
    Charles intended her to wed a man who could help further his political ambitions.
    She recalled Gideon’s bold offer. Her London cousins didn’t know her very well.
    Despite her serene appearance, her upbringing had scarcely been conventional. Her
    widowed father had let her run wild and she’d been ignored by her grandmother until
    she became too frail to care for herself. She’d spent half her life dressed in breeches. It
    was difficult for her to remember that women were supposed to act as if they were frail
    and needed a man’s support. Would Gideon really allow her to experience the
    unknown, intriguing world of a tonnish gentleman? It would be an excellent way to
    discover how the men who aspired to her hand behaved without their womenfolk
    around them.
    Antonia shivered and curled up into a tight ball. She wasn’t prepared to play the
    dutiful unmarried innocent. She had her own money and deserved to decide exactly
    what her marriage would entail before she entered into it. In truth, if she could not find
    a suitable gentleman to agree to her proposal, she hoped to avoid it all together. If all
    her female relations, except Jane, chose to remain tight-lipped about the marriage-bed,
    she would find out for herself. She sighed into the frigid air. Perhaps with a little help
    from a tall elegant man with a dangerous smile.
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    Antonia’s Bargain
    Chapter Two
    “Sir, I am not trying to be difficult.”
    Gideon tried to unclench his jaw as his father, Viscount Harcourt DeVere, paced the
    narrow strip of carpet behind his desk. It was difficult not to feel like a child again when
    the study brought back so many memories, most of them unpleasant. If he looked
    closely, the front trim of the mahogany desk still bore the indentations of his fingernails
    where he’d been bent over to receive a particularly severe beating.
    “You have made no effort to find a new wife.”
    “Caroline has only been dead a year. I hardly think that is a long time.”
    His father snorted. “Don’t try and pretend you are still in mourning for her.”
    “A year of mourning is considered customary these days. She was a troubled
    woman, Father. And in truth, I regret her passing.”
    His father halted, hands clasped behind his back. “Why? She was no credit to you.”
    Gideon drew a deep steadying breath. “Caroline found life very difficult. I wish I
    could have done more to make her happy.”
    “She was a promiscuous bitch.”
    Gideon hoped his father had no idea just how low his wife had sunk before her
    death. At the time of her suicide, she’d been pregnant with another man’s child. He
    glared at his father. “That was uncalled for.”
    The viscount sat down behind his desk, his expression fierce. “So slashing her
    wrists and coming down dressed in her best white gown to display herself to your
    dinner guests didn’t discompose you? I was there, dammit. I saw your face.”
    “Perhaps Caroline chose a rather melodramatic way to end her life but she was
    obviously distressed and not behaving quite as she ought.” How in God’s name had he
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    Kate Pearce
    ended up defending his