Beauty and the Duke Read Online Free

me.”
    Bingham sputtered. “Yes, of course.”
    But Erik was already walking away.
     
    “Good night, Miss Sommers,” the watchman said as Christine passed him in the darkened hallway.
    “Good night, Mr. Traverse. Please tell your mother I said hello.”
    Cloak in hand, Christine hurried through the Hall of Unicorns toward the back door. This wing of the museum was only slightly quieter than the corridor she had left, as it was closed off to the public. But music from the orchestra reverberated against the ceiling.
    She’d made a brief detour to the cloakroom, but other than the few times a guest stopped her, congratulating her on Papa’s award or asking about Joseph’s new appointment or why Aunt Sophie had not attended the festivities tonight, she had made a successful exit. No one could accuse her of running away if no one knew she’d escaped.
    As Christine rounded a corner, she nearly collided with…Erik! A gasp escaped her.
    He was standing with his arms crossed, his shoulder leaning against the doorjamb, quite at his leisure with her effort to elude him. He had the most piercing eyes she had ever known, and they did not waver from hers. All night she’d been forced to smile and pretend Erik Boughton was not sitting five feet down the table from her. And now she no longer need pretend. Such was the irony of her life. She was almost relieved to finally face him.
    “It warms the cockles of my heart to know you’ve na’ changed, leannanan. ”
    The gently spoken Gaelic endearment he’d once bestowed on her lifted her chin a notch. She vehemently disliked the familiar thrill that arced through her. “Do not presume to still know me, Lord Sedgwick.”
    The faintest smile lifted the graceful curve of hismouth. He had made no move to detain her. He didn’t have to. His very presence held her immobile in invisible arms of warmth. She had the uncomfortable impression he knew exactly the turmoil his presence was causing her.
    “How have you been, Christine?”
    “Very well.” She paused as her mind cast about for something more intelligent to say. “And you?”
    He answered the same.
    Ten years all summed up in two little words. It wasn’t even as if they had parted on poor terms. Not completely anyway. She had simply departed and vanished to another continent, and he had wed her cousin Charlotte.
    But the fact that he was here, not only in her part of England but at the museum, was an infringement. “Why are you here at the Fossil Society gala?” she asked. “I cannot imagine that these people would interest you.”
    “No, I imagine you cannot imagine any such thing. Becca has an interest in fossils. I am in London on business and so I thought to bring her. Darlington arranged for the introduction to your Lord Bingham. And so here I am.”
    The corner of her mouth crooked slightly at the memory of Bingham having to surrender his seat of prominence at their table to Sedgwick. “ My Lord Bingham is not used to being outranked or-flanked. He likes to think himself king even if it is only the Fossil Society he rules. Few remember it was Papa who founded the organization.”
    After a pause, he said, “I was sorry to hear about your father’s passing.”
    She studied Erik Boughton’s handsome face in the sconce light. The last time she had stood this close to him she had been deeply, irrevocably in love. “Healways liked you.”
    Erik gave a humorless laugh. “Despite the fact no one else in your family did?”
    “If Papa found fault with you it wasn’t because he believed you gave my cousin scarlet fever,” she said.
    For a moment, Erik started to say something more.
    With each heartbeat, Christine felt herself pulling back into her comfort zone where everything was safe and in its place. A place she could control. For the space of a few breaths, neither of them spoke. Then he asked, “What happened to you after you left England?”
    “I spent seven years with Papa and later Mr. Darlington, going