The Devil Who Tamed Her Read Free Page A

he could see his friend did too. Sabrina might have professed they were only friends, but it was obvious that she was in love with Duncan. “I’m not sure yet where I’ll be staying, so send the wedding invitation to Norford Hall. They’ll know where to find me.”
    Duncan nodded and went off to find his grandfathers to give them the good news. Alone in the parlor, Raphael considered the amazing idea that had occurred to him, but he only had a few minutes to decide whether to act on it or to discard it as ridiculous. Ophelia’s coach would be outside soon, which left him no time for a thorough deliberation. He either had to act immediately or not at all.

Chapter Three
    O PHELIA STARED OUT THE WINDOW of the coach at the harsh winter countryside as she and Sadie traveled south through Yorkshire on the way home to London. The grass was all brown, the trees mostly barren, though a few still held on to their brown leaves. It was a scene as bleak as her own thoughts.
    Had she really thought it would be different, her actual come-out? That the men she met wouldn’t be dazzled by her mere glance? That there wouldn’t be another hundred proposals to add to the countless ones she’d received before she had even reached a marriageable age. And why did they do it? Did even one of them love her? Of course they didn’t. They didn’t even know her!
    Her so-called friends were no different, liars the lot of them. God, how she despised such leeches. Not one of them was a real friend and never had been. They only flocked to her because of her popularity, which was merely because of her beauty. The fools! Did they really think she didn’t know why they called themselves her dearest friends? She knew why. She’d always known it. If she didn’t look the way she did, they wouldn’t keep coming back to receive the brunt of her bitterness.
    She despised the way she looked, and yet she took it for granted that no other woman could compare to her, and that pleased her. But two such opposite feelings had never sat well with her, had always pulled her one way or the other, causing her discomfort.
    Mirrors were her enemies. She loved them and hated them because they showed her what everyone else saw when they looked at her. Light blond hair with no dark streaks to mar its perfection, ivory skin without a blemish, arched brows that were ideal with a little plucking, blue eyes that weren’t remarkable except that they were set in a face with exquisite features. Everything about her face, the narrow, straight nose, the high cheekbones, lips that weren’t too lush, but not too thin, the firm, little chin that only jutted stubbornly when she was being stubborn—very well, that was most of the time, but it still completed the package that had dazzled every person she’d ever met, with the exception of two, but she wasn’t going to think about them anymore.
    Ophelia glanced at her maid sitting across from her in the coach. It was her personal coach, not a large one such as her father’s, which had the crest of the Earl of Durwich emblazoned on its doors, but big enough to carry her two large trunks of clothes and Sadie’s portmanteau on top of it, and seat four comfortably. It suited her well enough, with its velvet, cushioned seats, which she’d cajoled her father into having added, and a brazier to provide warmth. Sadie kept a lap robe over her short legs, but then she didn’t wear as many petticoats as Ophelia did, and it was quite chilly outside, deep into winter as it was.
    “Are you ready to tell me what happened back there?” Sadie asked.
    “No,” Ophelia replied adamantly.
    Sadie tsked and said knowingly, “Of course you will, dear, you always do.”
    Such impertinence! But Ophelia didn’t say this aloud. Even her maids had fallen under the spell of her beauty, afraid to touch her exquisite blond hair, afraid to run her bath in case it was not to her liking, afraid to lay out her clothes in case they wrinkled them, afraid