Brazen Temptress Read Free Page A

about, they would be able to afford to entertain their friends and family in the style Mary could only dream about.
    She rose slowly from her nuncheon, folding her napkin and setting it precisely beside her unfinished plate before proceeding down the hall toward her favorite room. At her feet trotted her ever-present companion, Baxter, a pug dog William had bought to keep her company. His flat nose wrinkled and twitched in every direction as he led his mistress down the hall.
    Their house in Cheapside had been part of her mother's dower holdings and, thankfully, had been left to her despite her family's unhappiness over her unsuitable marriage to William Johnston. Mary had always loved the bright and cheerful little house. And even though it wasn't situated in the most fashionable neighborhood, it still held a quaint charm.
    The sunny rooms, the old-fashioned regal furnishings with their glossy coats of wax, castoffs from her father's estates, gave Mary a sense of still belonging to the
ton
— though she'd given up every inch of her rank and social standing when she'd eloped over thirty years ago.
    With William going back to sea again, her dreams stretched beyond the niggling embarrassment of such poor refreshments to visiting her family and being able to afford the new clothes such visits would require.
    It was one thing to spend an afternoon with her old friend Lady Dearsley. Effie didn't care if Mary wore the same made-over gown year after year, only that she listened with rapt attention to the lady recall all the recent scandalous antics of the
ton.
    Mary's family was another matter. Appearances and fashion always ranked higher than amiable companionship.
    As she turned the corner toward her parlor, the strong scent of the sea assailed her. It caught her unawares and brought back happier memories of William returning from a long voyage, fresh from his ship and so eager to be in her arms.
    She hadn't cared then how he smelled; she was just happy to have him back on dry land. She'd never thought that being a captain's wife would mean so many lonely hours, but then again she'd never dreamed her family would turn their backs on her and leave her, as William often said, marooned.
    From the parlor, boisterous male voices rose in discussion. A ring of triumphant laughter followed.
    William had his ship! It must mean that. They'd gone down to the pool to see his new ship and now were back to tell her the good news.
    But as she drew closer to the room, she realized the odor overpowering the subtler scent of beeswax was not just the sea but something more odious.
    She frowned and looked down at Baxter. Oh, she shouldn't have fed him those kippers this morning — he'd had another one of his accidents.
    Steeling herself against embarrassment, she entered the parlor with her sunniest expression pasted to her face.
    "My dear Lord Admiral, what a delight it is to —" Her voice fell to a staggering halt as she discovered the true source of the stench in her home.
    With a quick glance she noted William standing sheepishly by the fireplace. At the other end of the mantel stood the Lord Admiral, his posture as straight and sure as it had been thirty years earlier when he and William had been young hot-blooded captains in their sharply pressed and starched uniforms.
    But it was the bundle of rags perched on her best chair that stopped her in her tracks.
    Though dressed in the rough clothes of a seaman, the ragtag person before her was most definitely a woman, though what age and what she looked like was hard to tell. It was her eyes, like the aquamarine ring Lady Mary's grandmother had given her, that gave her away. And there were her lashes, too long and full to belong to anyone other than a woman. But the comparison to her fair sex stopped there, for the little baggage appeared to have been dipped in filth and deposited into their parlor without any thought for the carpet or the furnishings — threadbare though they were.
    "What is the