Duke of Scandal (Moonlight Square, Book 1) Read Free Page A

what it could lead to. He never knew what the hell to say to her. God, there was so much to say.
    But he wasn’t allowed to say it. Wasn’t allowed to think it, or feel what he felt about that particular girl.
    She was Pete’s little sister, for God’s sake.
    Then it dawned on him that she wouldn’t have ventured here today into his den of iniquity unless something was very, very wrong. He leaned again toward the crack he had left in the doorway, and, listening for all he was worth, heard a phrase that chilled him to the marrow.
    Family emergency?
    Jove’s beard, was she crying? Had something else happened on top of her aunt’s death while he’d been off attending to his business in the country? Bloody hell. I wasn’t here for her. He felt sick at the realization.
    He had just got back into Town last night after dark, and had immediately sent for the requisite female companionship. He did not, as a rule, go more than a few days without having some pretty creature see to his needs, but it was also his strict rule not to poach on the locals back at Netherford Hall. So he had waited until he’d returned to London to have a couple of girls brought to him from the Satin Slipper.
    Too bad he had to drink copious amounts of liquor to drown out the protests of his conscience and his heart over his dubious choice of bedmates.
    All vestiges of sleep fell away immediately, however, at the thought that Felicity might need him. Jason strode back into the drawing room and went over to the ice bucket, in which the several bottles of wine had chilled last night.
    The ice was melted now, and he reached into the porcelain-lined urn and cupped his hands full of water. He splashed it on his face and shoved his fingers through his dark hair, smashing it into any sort of order he could make of it.
    He quickly rinsed his mouth, pulled on his wrinkled linen shirt, and hastily tucked it in. Then he glanced around until he found his waistcoat, cast across the pianoforte. He put it on, as well, even though it was clearly eveningwear: She would know he had fallen asleep in his clothes.
    Damn. Normally, he would not risk making himself look like any more of a colossal jackass than Felicity Carvel already must think him, but that phrase— family emergency —clanged in his head like a fire company’s bells. And contrary to what she probably thought, he still felt more like a member of the Carvel family than he did his own. He had to find out what was wrong and see if he could help.
    Fortunately, this time, the mirror gave him a slightly better report. Now he simply looked like a rakehell the morning after rather than a whore-mongering pervert.
    He took a deep breath at the drawing room door and braced himself. With a quiver in his stomach, he shoved it open and walked out. To his relief, he quickly observed that she was not crying anymore. Thank God.
    Alas, for his part, he had already started down the steps when he noticed that he wasn’t wearing any shoes.
    He rolled his eyes in frustration with himself. Perfect .
    Well, a grown man could do as he liked in his own home, could he not?
    His secretary, Richardson, was still talking to Felicity when she must have heard his footsteps, for she turned, lifted her glorious sea-green eyes, and saw him coming.
    Time stopped.
    As usual, with her.
    Emergency or not, calamity or not, despair or not, Jason could not fight the tender, lopsided grin that formed on his lips at the sight of her.
    No more than it seemed she could fight that particular, tremulous smile that he knew with his heart and his loins alike had always belonged only to him.
    There was no other smile like it in the entire world.
    It was daybreak and sunrise. Soft as rabbits’ fur. As warm and sweet and homey as a mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night.
    In short, it was torture.
    And liar that he was, he refused, as always, to show how deeply that smile affected him.
    “Felicity Joy,” he greeted her