Untamed Read Online Free Page A

already?’
    She gestured graciously for him to continue and tried not to smile, because her smile might be a sort of sunrise.
    ‘The Duke – he had the courtesy title of Viscount d’Auton then – was always a little wild, but I was worse. We were . . . very attached. We had a grand old time wreaking the devil’s own havoc, until he realised that he only got into trouble when I was around. Other people didn’t like me very much, you see.’
    She watched this astonishing man, whose voice was as beautiful as the rest of him, and was sceptical. Then she thought about that unsettling thing she’d seen in his eyes.
    ‘I find it hard to imagine you tearing around the countryside.’
    ‘Then you haven’t much imagination, Miss Sutherland.’ There was no censure in his voice – just a stark reminder that she did not know him at all.
    ‘What did he do?’
    ‘The summer we were nine he greeted me with as much affection as ever. He suggested a game of hide-and-go-seek. I hid in the old scullery, which was an excellent spot, and he locked me in. He didn’t let me out for three days.’
    ‘Christ.’
    ‘It became his favourite game, until I refused to come to the big house and play with him any more. Then he told his father that my father had been poaching. My father was a good, loyal servant and nothing could be proved, so instead of being transported we were simply made to move, with a black mark against our name. My name. My whole life I have not been able to rid myself of him. I feel, sometimes, that I am locked in that room still.’
    He said these things lightly, but Kit’s listening became intent. His voice was expensive – a servant could not have afforded it for his son. And he had admitted already to having some difficulty with truth. So she listened instead to the things he did not say.
    ‘You are a man who feels he cannot move,’ she said, watching his face closely. He gave nothing away. ‘And you feel this, because you think the Duke is a powerful man.’ It was curious, given that he had called the man weak and silly.
    He turned to face her, his shoulder and head against the wall, and he was close, she realised, much closer than he should be. ‘I do,’ he said.
    ‘Then you’re a bloody fool.’
    He went absolutely still, and a second later she started to tremble. She couldn’t say what had changed, but she was sure he would crush her with the next words that came out of his mouth.
    He opened his lips.
    Closed them.
    Gave a small, devastating smile. His eyes were shuttered, she realised, because sadness lay across them like the grime over the stained-glass windows at St Paul’s.
    ‘What do you mean?’ he asked simply.
    ‘Being a duke does not make him powerful,’ she said, her voice strong and even, giving no sign that her fingers longed to reach for his pale, perfect cheeks and make him warm. Bring him to her. Lay her forehead against his – to say, better than words could say, Be safe .
    ‘In the great British Empire only royalty stand above him, yet you say he is not powerful?’
    ‘He doesn’t take his seat in Parliament,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t risk an opinion before other men. What has he built? Who does he champion?’ She gestured to the much fêted duke. ‘What is he, but a hairstyle, some tall collars, and a cravat that other men envy?’
    She turned back to him, feeling suddenly absurd, a retraction ready on her lips.
    Some feeling had pulled his beauty apart and left his features exposed, unsure. His eyes flickered to hers, and he flinched away.
    He smiled a perfect, charming smile, and she wouldn’t have known, had she not seen it, that something troubled him.
    ‘Excuse me, Miss Sutherland,’ he said, bowing to her. ‘There is somewhere I need to be.’
    Darlington turned away from Miss Sutherland and caught Crispin’s eye before he left the room.
    The boy stood in ducal finery by one of the five enormous mirrors Lady Marmotte had commissioned for the ball,