Promise Me Heaven Read Online Free

evening wore on, he felt sure her request for funds must be imminent. But each time she appeared to be coming to the point, she would fix him with that absurdly level gaze and waver.
    Perhaps pride forbade a direct request, he thought, trying to make her as comfortable as possible. He was fast becoming impatient to have it out and over with. Having recognized the timeworn ploy of fortifying oneself with liquor, he was concerned the chit would slide senseless beneath the table before ever having the chance to divulge the reason for her visit. In some concern, he finally dismissed the footman that he might regulate her consumption himself. She was watching him now, a disheartened expression on her face. He felt the moment ripe to draw her out. But she spoke first.
    “You do have a great deal of bald-faced charm,” she said thoughtfully, her voice husky, slurred with alcohol.
    “Thank you,” he said, wondering if, from her tone, he should be thanking her at all.
    “No, really,” she said quickly, trying to interject an enthusiastic note. “I can see, I really can, how at one time you would be quite pleasant company for a lady.”
    “At one time?”
    “Yes. I’m sure you were a very nice escort.”
    “Oh, I see,” he said. Polite understatement. She was obviously aware of his sordid reputation and was seeking assurance that those past transgressions would not be reenacted here. “Let us be frank, Lady Catherine. You have heard the rumors—”
    She cut through his disclaimer. “Yes. Yes. Let us be frank.” She slapped her open palm on the tabletop. The china danced. “I have heard the rumors. Lah, sir, we were more or less weaned on them. People could hardly wait to tell us of your escapades, seeing how our mother had married your half brother.”
    “I am sorry.” Indeed, he was. Some of the stories that could have reached those innocent ears were unfit for even the most sophisticated listeners.
    “So am I,” she lamented woefully. “I shouldn’t have been so naive. I, of all people, should have realized how one little transgression, oft-repeated, snowballs into fantastic proportions. My great-aunt, you know.”
    Montrose let his breath out, unaware he had been holding it. Obviously she had taken it upon herself to exonerate him of culpability. He certainly wasn’t going to inform her that, in all probability, what she had heard had been the truth. He regretted the licentiousness that was the hallmark of his youth and was profoundly grateful some disease had not been his just reward.
    “I should have known,” she was saying, almost to herself as she stared into the wineglass, “that a reputation as a heartbreaker of almost mythic proportions could only be manufactured. No one could possibly live up to that reputation.”
    “Indeed, yes,” he said with relief.
    Encouraged by this understanding and rustic giant, unable to hide the disappointment of watching her carefully laid plans dissolve into nothing, Cat continued. “I mean, look at you! Even taking for granted that your…
bulk
has increased somewhat in the past years, and your manners are very nice… for the country… you are hardly the deadly combination of sensuality and suavity a rake is reported to be.”
    “My bulk?” Thomas paused, arrested in the act of lifting his glass to his mouth. But Cat was beyond paying close attention to her pleasant rural companion, being well launched into her theme.
    “Aye,” she said blithely, “your mass. Your size. You are huge. Why, just the thought of you doing the pretty at some crush is enough to bring tears of laughter. Don’t you agree?”
    “Quite.”
    She should have listened. Had she not been four sheets to the wind, she would have sensed the import of that telling softness.
    “I mean really, can you imagine yourself swinging some fair thing in the waltz? I can. You’d probably launch her out a window during the first turn!” Here Cat had the misfortune to giggle, but, remembering her