Lust Read Free Page A

chaste piety.
    As if to prove her thoughts, Caleb Graham, a baronet in the village, passed her on the street, shooting her a most amiable, handsome grin.
    â€œGoody day, ladies,” he murmured, his voice pleasing in a masculine way. “Lady Chastity,” he said as he removed his tricorn hat and bowed before her. “How lovely you look this morning. The walk has added an invigorating glow to your skin.”
    Nothing. Not even the faintest fluttering in her belly. She had heard the other village girls—most of them older women—talk of Caleb Graham’s handsomeness. His desirability. Chastity saw it perfectly well. He was a handsome man, and his broad shoulders and chest belied a virile manliness that attracted the fairer sex. But nothing feminine stirred within her.
    â€œGood day, sir,” was all she replied, for she was unable to make any idle or pleasant conversation with the opposite sex, however much she longed to possess the ability.
    Chastity could not help but notice that his eyes had darkened as he replaced his hat atop his brown hair. Her aloofness was not what the baron was used to when he chatted with females. But Chastity was not blessed withthe gift of artful flirtation. She didn’t know how. Didn’t understand it. Hers was a purity of the mind, soul and body. A paragon above the temptations of mortal man.
    â€œShall you attend the green this evening?” Caleb’s query was directed at her, while his gaze was firmly fixed upon her ample décolletage, which she discreetly covered with the corner of her silk shawl.
    â€œI am afraid not. Do excuse us, sir, for we must be on our way.”
    The censure in her voice startled him, causing an expression of maligned vanity to cross his features. “Well, then, good day,” he grumbled, and Chastity heard him mutter, “Frigid shrew” beneath his breath as he stabbed the ground with his walking stick and proceeded up the high street.
    â€œPay him no heed,” Prudence whispered next to her. “He doesn’t know a thing about you, and his assessment is wrong. Besides, I’ve heard stories about him. He’s not the sort you’d wish to set your heart upon.”
    With a nod and a sigh, Chastity continued to stroll with her sisters down the cobbled street, taking in the bustling activity of the May Day preparations as she forced the interaction out of her mind. Caleb was handsome, so why couldn’t she bear to look at him, much less converse with him? Chastity feared she was the oddest female in Christendom. She most certainly was unlike any of the other young ladies of her acquaintance.
    â€œYou have such a way with the opposite sex,” her sister Mary chortled. “Would it hurt to bestow a smile upon one?”
    Chastity did not take the bait. What did Mary know, she thought savagely. Mary didn’t realize the mental anguish Chastity suffered, the pain that came from knowing she wasn’t like other women. How would Mary feel if she were to discover that the desires of man and woman would never be hers to experience?
    â€œCome, Chastity, you could have offered him a bit of encouragement. Caleb Graham has been hungering for you for a year, at least. Give the poor fellow a smile, or heaven forbid, a dance at the assembly rooms. Who knows, perhaps you might even enjoy shedding your mantle of purity.”
    â€œLeave off, Mary,” Prudence demanded. “You’re just being hurtful and spiteful. Besides, it’s not done to stop in the middle of the road and talk to a man. It looks gauche and common, and Chastity was quite right to rebuff the baronet’s presumptive behavior.”
    Mary sent Prudence a horrid glare. “A tip of the hat and a bland ‘good day’ is presumptive? Dear me, Prudence, you must come down from your tower room and live amongst the real world. I vow, you would have a fit of apoplexy at some of the things that have been whispered to