Season For Desire Read Online Free

And mine. And a countess.”
    “My mother?” Her brows knit.
    “No, this one calls herself Lady Irving.”
    “Good God.”
    “That was my reaction too, yes.”
    “Have you met the countess before today?” At his yes , she brushed past him. “Then let us join the party, since its members are such old friends.”
    “Don’t be too sure about that, your majesty.”
    She halted as though leashed by his words.
    A thin smile played over Giles’s mouth. “You and I, for example, are nothing but acquaintances. Now that I have been inconvenienced to serve in your and your father’s schemes, we shall soon go our separate ways.” He paused. “Also, you’re heading the wrong way. The private parlor is the other direction.”
    He shouldn’t have goaded her. He really shouldn’t. Because even though he was tired and cold and hungry, she was all those things, too.
    Turning back toward him, she stared, all shadowed eyes and set jaw in the candlelit corridor.
    Words of apology were among the most difficult to pronounce, but he made a start. “Look, I didn’t mean—”
    “I think,” she said in that lead-crystal voice, “that you are under a misapprehension about me, Mr. Rutherford. Perhaps several.”
    Her haughtiness closed off his apology before it got properly under way. “Doubtless, princess. I’m probably full of misapprehensions and mistakes. But I’m also the man who knows where the parlor is, where your father is keen to speak with you.”
    That lost look crossed her features again: wild, confused, terrified.
    Yes, princess; actions have consequences . He didn’t say this—admirable restraint!—but only stretched out a hand to indicate the correct direction.
    She did not follow. “First, I am not a princess, but the daughter of a peer of the realm. You ought correctly to call me ‘my lady.’ Second, I am neither stupid nor intoxicated. I was shaking off the effects of being drugged. And third—which you might work out for yourself, given the second fact—I did not arrive here of my own accord.” As she spoke, a steadying hand rested against the plaster wall. The flow of words seemed to sap her strength, though her voice never trembled.
    “Fine,” Giles said. “I understand. My mistake. Three mistakes.” Many more mistakes than that, actually. He cleared his throat. “I’m . . . sorry.”
    Her head jerked, an awkward nod. “I’m sorry that either of us is in this situation.”
    “So—you didn’t really elope with that sharp-faced fellow?” This was all he could think of to say.
    “He is rather sharp-faced, isn’t he? No, I did not elope with him. I never intended to have anything to do with him again.” And she began to spin a frayed tale about laudanum and her maid—she had her own maid , of course she did—and waking up in the carriage, and being drugged again, and . . .
    Finally Giles put up his hands. “Stop. Stop. I don’t need to hear all that. You can tell your father, preferably while I’m sitting before a fire eating dinner and letting my boots dry out.”
    “But you believe me, do you not?” There was an unmistakable resemblance to the earl in the defiant way she lifted her chin.
    Giles dodged the question. “Your father was certain you eloped.”
    “Was he? And is your father correct about everything you get up to?” One of her dark brows lifted, and there was something carnal, suddenly, in the way the words sang through the air, lush and low.
    “No,” he admitted.
    “Then we need not consider the parental view of the matter, need we?” In the considering tilt of her head, there was judgment.
    Now, how had Giles come to be judged? Lady Audrina was the one almost a country away from where she was meant to be.
    Ah—no, Giles was split by an ocean from his home, wasn’t he? And his dreams were as wild and distant as any laudanum-bespelled vision.
    The lady stood beneath a sconce, and when he stepped closer, he saw strain tightening her features. Eyes of deep