An Improper Seduction Read Free Page A

she returned with ire.
    “You would not be safe in your bed if I were near you, my lady. You would never be safe within ten feet of me. But I will let you go and we will both be on our way. Surely our paths must cross again.”
    “Not if I have anything to say about the matter,” vowed Angeline as she felt him release her. She immediately stood up, but was stopped by a dizziness to her head from the sudden change in altitude. Taking a deep breath while straightening her skirts over her hips, she composed herself as quickly as she could, then turned to confront the object of her ire.
    He was gone!
    “Blast you, sir,” she yelled toward the wood. “You have not even the mettle to face my wrath directly.”
    Walking quickly through the woods, Geoffrey took deep breaths to calm his desires and disarm his still throbbing sex. Now that was a woman he would remember for weeks to come, he thought. And, when he figured out exactly who she was, he would have her in his bed to taste the rest of her treasures.
    Maybe a mistress was all he needed to relieve his troubled thoughts. Surely a wife of tamed manner would not care if he went to another for true satisfaction. After all, a lady would be appalled at what he would expect from her in bed without another outlet for his lust.
    Angeline spent another half hour talking to herself while trying to regain the last of her composure and sanity.
    Who was that dissipated man that he should feel so free with her? When she learned his name, she would have her father drum him out of the shire. She finished gathering her bouquet, placed the remainder of the flowers in her basket, then headed toward the manse.
    With great difficulty, she ignored the heat still humming through her body and the tingle of his touch on her breasts and inner thighs.
    “Lord Colburn, how good of you to make time to visit.” Angus Hartley, Earl of Hartfield, extended his hand in greeting. “You certainly must be busy as you take up the reins of your new lands. Have you found them in disrepair?”
    “Lord Hartfield, I am grateful you would receive me.” Geoffrey took the seat in front of the hearth offered him. He settled into the navy blue armchair and momentarily relished its down-filled cushion. “I am afraid there is much to see to after my cousin’s death. His estates were not prospering as they should have been. I expect it will take me a year or two to sort out the disaster, but I have the time and inclination, so I doubt there shall be any challenge I cannot overcome.”
    “Please, my lord, we shall be neighbors. Call me by my Christian name. Angus will suit well when we are not in the presence of others.”
    “Then you must call me Geoffrey.” The earl held up a crystal decanter at a side table and nodded at it. With a smile, Geoffrey nodded back, then welcomed the crystal glass filled with amber liquid into his hand. “You look to have a fine estate here, Angus. Has it been in your family long?”
    “Many generations have seen it passed from one son to the next. Nearly three hundred years it has held the Hartley name.” A shadow passed across the earl’s face. “But there shall soon be an end to it as my wife has been dead for more than ten years and I have only a daughter to whom it can pass,” sighed Angus, then he took a deep drink of his sherry. “Bless my father for removing the entail. If not for that, it would be lost in this generation instead of the next.”
    “Has she married, this daughter of yours, Angus?” Geoffrey studied the flames, wondering if his search here was already ended. “Will she at least give you a grandson who will carry on the line if not the name?”
    “Alas, I am much afraid I have sired a spinster, sir.” Angus shook his head in disgust. “She spent two Seasons in London but refused to marry. She said the men her age had the sense of goats, yet she would not entertain the older gentlemen as she claimed they were all rakes of the first water. She refuses