With One Look Read Online Free Page A

the feeling, and he came around, bending over to pet the handsome dog.
    "So, there you are!" Sebastian appeared with a servant in tow. One of Victor's servants had interrupted the performance with a message—and it was good news—but the words stopped on Sebastian's lips as he beheld the girl. His hands clasped over his heart and he almost dropped to his knees in appreciation. "I might have known you'd somehow single out the most beautiful young
    lady in the theater for your attention. Oh, I do see! A thousand pardons, Madame. My judgment was rash. I should have said the most beautiful lady in all of Orleans. Who are you?"
    Jade Terese suffered a moment's confusion. He could not be addressing her? She turned around as if to spot another lady, which made the two gentlemen laugh.
    "Oh, yes." Sebastian motioned toward the waiting servant, though his gaze remained fixed on the young lady, "Vic, I believe our ship has returned. Our good captain is waiting."
    Victor chuckled at the news. "Send Carl with the carriage to take the ladies home after the opera," he told the waiting man. "And bring our horses round at once."
    "Yes sir," the man said, and he departed. Sebastian still stared at the young lady.
    "Mademoiselle Devon," Victor said, returning his attention to Jade Terese. "Allow me to introduce my friend, Lord Sebastian Van de Auxere."
    A gentle hand came over hers, and the Austrian bowed as he lifted the delicate hand for a kiss. "No fairer maid has thy eyes ever beheld," Sebastian said, quoting Shakespeare.
    Jade consulted her intuition, a considerable gift, and decided his flattery was a tease, his title a pretense but one she would humor. The sweet girlish sound of her laughter sang like musical wind chimes as she stroked Hamlet's head.
    "Lord Sebastian, is it?" she questioned. "I'm afraid Louisiana does not often get to host titled nobility— indeed, much of any kind of nobility! You must tell me what brings a nobleman all the way to Orleans?"
    "Ah, Mademoiselle, I ask myself that at least once a day. I can only say I came escaping an even worse fate than this swamp-infested town and its relentless heat."
    "What he means," Victor supplied, "is that being the fourth and last son of the Van de Auxerre title, and with no fortune to recommend him, his parents had arranged a marriage to rectify these troubling circumstances." He leaned over, grinning as he confided, "This worse fate refers to the lady he left at the altar."
    The lovely green eyes sparkled with mirth, but she pretended to be properly shocked. "You didn't leave a lady at the altar?"
    "A lady?" Sebastian questioned. "No, not a lady. As I recall she resembled more of a cow and my own sweet grandmother looked like a bonny spring maid in comparison." The young lady's amusement encouraged him. "So I departed to take refuge in the lovely ladies of the English court,
    and it was there in just such a lady's bedchambers that I met Victor and what seems to have become my fate."
    "Pardon? A lady's bedchambers? What can you mean?"
    Victor chuckled, but sighed. "The incident hardly bears repeating but I see you are imagining the worst. You see, that night I had been at some or another social function and after being introduced to my lovely hostess—some duke's daughter—" He stopped and looked to Sebastian. "What was her name again?"
    "I believe it was Melissa," he supplied.
    "Yes. Anyway, Melissa and I discovered a shared interest in great work of art. She invited me up to her rooms to examine her collection. No sooner did we arrive there than Sebastian, who I'd yet to meet, jumped out from nowhere and demanded to know what I was doing there. I merely explained that I had come to examine the lady's paintings—"
    "He neglects to mention," Sebastian interjected, "that there were no paintings in the room." "Well!" Victor exclaimed. "The lady deliberately misled me to believe otherwise, to what
    purpose ... well, one might only imagine."
    Jade's laughter told him she was