How To Tempt a Viscount Read Free

wanted to reel him in. And she was very determined to reel him in.
    She took great care over her toilette, slipping on the dress Kitty had had made for the occasion. Marcus was still sleeping when she wrote the note and left it for him, and departed for the British Museum.
    It took only thirty minutes before he arrived, and she worried for every single one of them that he would not come, standing there in the classical gallery with her maid, trying to concentrate on reading the information cards attached to each of the ancient stone sculptures, and not keep glancing up at the door. She saw his tall, dark-clad figure entering at the far end of the room even before the maid whispered her warning, and felt almost weak-boned with relief. She deliberately remained staring at the card as if she were reading it. Only when she heard him say her name did she glance at him as if in surprise.
    ‘Marcus, I thought you were busy today. Did you not say that you were in Westminster this morning?’
    ‘Indeed, but I have rearranged the meeting.’
    Marcus had never forgone his work for her before. Indeed, he had spent so much of those first two months of his marriage in meetings and working that she knew it had been a means to avoid her. But he was not avoiding her today. He had come, just as she had planned. She suppressed a small grim smile of satisfaction and let her gaze wander over him. His hair was ruffled and dark as a raven’s wing. His eyes were a dark intense blue. Last night’s shadow of beard stubble had gone, and she had the sudden urge to reach her hand out and run her fingers over the clean-shaven strong lines of his face. His tailoring was immaculate, dark and pristine, his shirt bright white and freshly ironed. His manner was relaxed, arrogant almost, so that, had she not known better, she would have believed his journey here to have been unhurried.
    In the cool clear light of day he looked devastatingly handsome. So handsome that she felt shaken by it and remembered the man she had fallen in love with, and all of the emotions that she had thought she had managed to suppress threatened to resurface with a vengeance. She turned away that he would not see, trying to get a grip on herself, telling herself what she was here to do, and reminding herself why. And when she glanced at him again her resolution was repaired and she was as distant and untouched as he had been all those months ago.
    ‘I did not realise you had such an interest in classical sculpture,’ she said.
    ‘I do not.’ His eyes met hers and she felt a shiver ripple right through her. And the tension between them escalated all the more.
    ‘Then perhaps I can persuade you to develop a liking for Greek antiquities.’ She sent her maid off with his footman and slipped her arm through his. She was standing so close she could smell the clean masculine scent of him, so familiar that it sent the butterflies flocking in her stomach just as it had the very first time she had met him. She quelled them with a ruthlessness that had not been there then.
    ‘Perhaps,’ he said, but his eyes were dark and intense and fixed with an interest that was all for her. She felt herself blush at the heat in his scrutiny, felt almost heady with it, and averted her gaze, forcing her focus back to what she was here to do.

    Her hand was warm tucked against his arm. She left it there and guided him along the gallery.
    ‘I am surprised by your interest, Ellen,’ he said in a voice that made her tingle as much as if he had stroked his fingers against the nape of her neck.
    ‘You mean because my father was not born a gentleman, because he made his fortune in trade, you did not think I would understand anything of the classics?’ Her tone was smooth enough but she could not quite disguise the sharpness beneath it.
    ‘That is not what I meant.’
    She looked at him.
    ‘Your father is a gentleman amongst gentlemen, Ellen.’
    She studied his eyes for mockery and, seeing only