Sacrifice (Fashionably Impure Book 3) Read Free Page A

worked harder at that than at rebuilding
your wealth.”
    There
was a great deal of truth to what Jon said but Adrian said nothing, becoming
engrossed in wiping several specks of lint from his coat.
    “The
Americans call that Federal Blue,” Jon said. “A coat like that will do quite
nicely for those sober folk. Take only your plainest waistcoats; it won’t do to
appear too flashy.”
    “Flashy,
eh?” Adrian grinned yet in the mirror, the reflection of his eyes greeted him,
cold and full of his hunger to meet with Winterton.
    “Come
now, Adrian, have you really thought this marriage through?”
    “I
thought you were on my side,” Adrian replied.
    “If you
are bound to have her, I would rather see her forced to share your genteel
poverty than have you set to kill yourself in order to earn enough coin to
afford her.”
    “I
wasn’t killing myself.” Yet, Adrian knew that his constant late nights at the
gaming tables to earn money had kept him away from his sons.
    Away
from Miranda.
    “I do
question the wisdom of you shackling yourself to such a demanding woman for
life. She’s so young to be so acquisitive.”
    “She’s
not so demanding or acquisitive.”
    “I hear
she’s not on good terms with Winterton. He’s never acknowledged her. I even
heard him denigrate her as whore when Carrville first took her under his
protection.”
    Coldness
rushed through Adrian, a peculiar sensation of deadly rage. “She’s no whore.
She is actually somewhat naïve, still innocent in the most unexpected ways.”
    “Innocent?
Cassandra Jones sold her innocence in a notorious auction. The sum she managed
to wrangle out of gentlemen just for the pleasure to see her naked was
unprecedented.”
    Adrian’s
gut tightened. The urge to ask Jon if he had been one of those men who had paid
sliced through him like a knife.
    No, he
couldn’t live with knowing if it were true.
    He
clamped his jaw to keep from asking.
    “Winterton
can hurt your reputation and standing, make no mistake about it,” Jon said his
tone as characteristically fatalistic as it always was when he felt certain of
something dire.
    “My mind
is set. I will have her as my wife.”
    “Then I
think you ought to consider living away from England for a time. Take some time
during the coming voyage to America to consider my offer of a long-term
position.”
    “In
India?”
    “Yes.
You could make a real fortune to leave to your sons. Let the scandal of your
marriage die on the vine in your absence.”
    “How
much of a scandal can it possibly cause? There will be talk for a season or two
at most.”
    “The
scandal and talk may well last as long as Winterton feeds the flame.”
    “A man
cannot be hurt so badly by mere words.”
    “The
average man? No. But you? With your father’s legacy weighing on you?”
    Adrian’s
gut tightened again, with the truth he knew Jon’s words held. “I am an
Englishman. This is my home. I will not be chased from it.”
    “You’re
making quite a personal sacrifice for her. That’s your choice. But what of your
sons?”
    “Bloody
hell, Jon, when did you become so fixated upon reputation and what others say?”
Adrian might have mentioned Anne Lloyd, Jon’s plump, dark, exotically beautiful
countess. She’d had quite the reckless run around the time of their marriage.
He remembered all the talk of her uncommon fondness for claret and her low-cut,
dangerously fashionable gowns. Then there was her indiscreet behavior with her
male cousin, the young Duke of Saxby, and then Saxby’s death too shortly after,
at the hands of his older wife, a woman who just happened to be Jon’s former
mistress. A woman who later vanished without any plausible explanation, right
after her lover, a man who happened to be Jon’s major political rival, had been
shot dead in his bed.
    Those
events had caused many titillated whisperings.
    And not
to even mention the whispers about Anne Lloyd’s supposed madness.
    Adrian
was not so tasteless as to