Season For Desire Read Online Free Page B

discussion. I cannot have you endangering our family’s prospects with the scandal of your presence. I do not want you seen in London.” He turned to Richard. “Rutherford, I need your assurance that Audrina will be permitted to travel with you until after the wedding. Naturally, Lady Irving will remain with the party to impart the respectability Lady Audrina requires.”
    Giles set down his fork. “Wedding? Whose wedding?”
    “My third daughter’s wedding to the Duke of Walpole on the first day of the new year.”
    “What does that wedding have to do with us?” asked Giles.
    “Third? How many daughters have you?” This from Richard, who always took an interest in personal irrelevancies.
    “Five. This one is the youngest.” Without looking at the lady in question, the earl gnawed at a bit of roast, then drained a glass of the brandy Lady Irving had ordered. “I have no sons, so the disposal of my daughters in marriage is of highest importance for the reputation of our family. A union with the Walpole dukedom will be the finest matrimonial alliance London has seen in years, and I cannot allow the scandal of an elopement or an abduction to endanger it. Especially since my two eldest have allied themselves disappointingly, and the fourth seems disinclined to be a part of proper society.”
    This was all sensibly put, were the earl talking of the behavior of business partners. But his words were as cold as the winter rain. Didn’t his children deserve more care? Richard’s schemes always had family betterment at their heart, even if the end result was quite the opposite. Giles could not help but notice that Daughter Number Five sat stiff as a statue, not touching a bite of food. Not looking as though she was eager to be disposed of . Not looking, for the moment, as though she dared feel anything at all.
    But Giles remembered the bleed of painful emotion that had overcome her in the corridor. “How uncooperative of your progeny,” Giles said coolly to the earl. “It is obvious that dependent females ought to set aside individual will and do as you bid them.”
    Someone kicked him under the table. Honestly, it could have been any of them. “If Llewellyn’s interference is unwanted,” he added more loudly, “then why don’t we simply tie him up and leave him in a cellar until after the wedding?”
    An arpeggio of gasps, from the earl’s drink-deepened rumble through Richard’s baritone and Lady Irving’s contralto. “I did, of course, intend that we should feed him,” Giles said.
    “You mistake the matter, young man,” barked the latter. “He must be returned to London at once. You must see that if he arrives in the earl’s company, it will be quite clear that he never eloped.”
    “He could have eloped with the earl.”
    The earl’s complexion turned a deeper red. “You are vulgar, sir.”
    “Do you think so? I’m not even trying. Must be the gift of my American blood.” Giles turned his attention to his dinner, adding, “As long as we’re making observations about behavior, I don’t think much of your manner of asking for a favor, my lord.”
    “You don’t have to like it. It is, however, in your best interest to obey.”
    Giles felt a pang of sympathy for the earl’s offspring.
    “And if you do, giving me your word as gentlemen—assuming such a thing matters to Americans,” Lord Alleyneham continued, “that you will remain with Lady Audrina and Lady Irving until the ducal wedding goes forward, I will tell you where to find a puzzle box.”
    Across the table, Richard’s dark eyes snagged Giles’s. “A . . . puzzle box, you say?” He had to clear his throat before the words resounded clearly.
    “One belonging to your late wife.” Could the earl be thought human enough to experience joy, the expression on his face might have read as gleeful. “I told you I had learned of your business in England. You, Mr. Rutherford, are on a treasure hunt—and with the right guidance, you