Lady in Red Read Online Free

purposefully. Attempting to outpace his perpetual feeling of defeat.
    Once again, London had become an endless, ongoing parade of empty pleasures. Each more debauched than the last, even as his hostesses attempted to freshen his experienced palate. What if nothing could? Is that what had happened to his father? It would certainly explain the old man’s turn to twisted play.
    Perhaps he simply needed a sympathetic ear to ease the growing pressure of his demons, and only Yvonne could give him that. The woman truly was a genius of the boudoir, and if she had let him, he would have taken up residency in her room years before. Such a female would have held his interest for some time. But she no longer entertained men, as far as he understood.
    It was just as well. Madame Yvonne was one of the few people he actually liked. Woman of the night though she was, he admired her pragmatism, her shrewdness, and her unwillingness to be bought. In almost any capacity.
    He didn’t knock on the double doors; he was too important a client to give way to ceremony. The lights flickering about the room were seductive and warm. The big bed, laden with red and white silk pillows, was empty.
    The surprising lap of water drew his attention. He turned toward the fire with its amber glow. And there—Holy god. There was hell in the firelight, beckoning even the best of men.
    A creature of pure beauty.
    Her short black hair, terribly unusual, fluffed about her elegant aristocratic face. A face that was far too thin, yet luminescent for that delicacy. Her neck seemed impossibly slender and quite too fragile to hold up her head. The slim lines of her throat tapered to a collarbone so beautiful it was all he could do not to reach out to trace the fine-looking bones.
    Her breasts, small yet rounded perfectly, the nipples pink and hard from the bath, were visible. The shallow water barely covered her hips. If he took a step forward, he would be able to see her mons.
    He didn’t. His interest was far from lust. Her very presence held him with a force that knocked the air out of his lungs.
    Her knees poked up from the water, oddly girlish, like a filly’s. And the longer he looked at her, the more he realized it was not her undernourished body that pulled him into the calm eye of a storm, but the spirit that fairly shone from her.
    “Hello, my dear,” he ventured gently.
    Her piercing eyes took him in with wild alarm. She shrank for a moment before grabbing the sides of the tub. “I am not your dear.”
    Edward blinked, abashed by her standoffishness. He’d expected the practiced and sultry voice of a whore or a whore in training. Her very presence in Madame Yvonne’s bedchamber declared she’d been selected from a likely hellish life to be trained for pleasure.
    But unlike the other women who were just brought to fill the rooms and halls of Eden’s Palace, this woman’s voice was sharp, abrasive . . . and most certainly afraid.
    It was also cultured.
    Edward held her gaze. Would she stare him down? He was not certain. There was no promise of pleasure in those shockingly beautiful orbs. Fear. Fear widened her violet eyes. Perhaps she had come from a place too damned for most mortals. Her perfect elocution eliminated the possibilities of St. Giles or Whitechapel.
    For the first time in as long as he could recall, he was at a loss for words. One did not usually find frightened, naked young women in Madame Yvonne’s room. Especially not frightened, half-starved young women who glared with defiance etched upon every feature.
    “Go.” Her pale lips parted, exposing white teeth.
    “If that is what you wish.” Yet he found his boots unable to move and do her bidding. It was as if she were a snake charmer upon the dusty street, playing her tune to keep him mesmerized. A strange stirring he hadn’t felt in an age kindled inside him. Not desire, but . . . interest.
    “Go,” she snapped again, breaking the thrall of her gaze.
    In one shaking sweep of