The Redemption of a Dissolute Earl Read Free

to
consummate our relationship until we are properly wed.”
    “Oh, yes,” Charlotte blurted, feeling as if
the hounds of hell had just been called off her heels. “That’s a
sound idea.”
    Salisbury offered a cynical smile. “Your
enthusiasm for the delay wounds my inflated pride.”
    Charlotte’s heart dropped to her bare feet.
What to say? She scrambled for the right words, but a loud knocking
and the harsh, clipped shout of, “Curtain’s going up in five,”
saved her from having to respond.
    “That’s my cue,” she said, rushing to put on
her slippers and her costume. “We’ll talk later?”
    Salisbury stood and opened the door for her.
“No need. Tomorrow we’ll be wed. Whatever there’s to say, we’ve a
lifetime to do it.”
    A lifetime? Charlotte walked toward
her dressing room door. Why did it sound like a death sentence? She
took a deep breath. She was good enough to marry into the ton , and to be good enough, she needed to shove her
silly girlhood fantasies into the darkest recesses of her mind
where they could damn well stay gathering cobwebs.
    “I’m looking forward to forever,” she lied.
Determined to make a grand exit, she lifted her chin and turned
away to walk elegantly, like the duchess she would be, down the
bustling corridor. Her foot caught in the long hem of her gown,
causing her to careen forward with a yelp of dismay.
    She had never been good at grand exits. She
threw her arms out to catch herself, but instead of a jarring hit,
a strong pair of hands slipped under her arms then proceeded to
draw her up into a circle of heat and steel.
    Her heart jumped in a way it had not jumped
in almost a year.
    Joy surged through her.
    Maybe she was not dead inside after all.
    She glanced up to thank her savior and
stared in numb silence into bright blue eyes surrounded by long,
sooty lashes set in the face of a golden devil.
    “Release me at once,” she hissed at Drew, as
the heat of longing and desire danced up her body, flushed her
chest, and singed her face.
    The hounds of hell, indeed .
    Satan was holding her in his arms, and she
was not about to be dragged back down into the pits of hell,
otherwise known as love.

 

    None of Drew’s heated fantasies of Char this
past year had included her demanding in a most unfriendly tone that
he let her go. Which was precisely why he was sure he was not
having another one of his lovely daydreams about her. Her angry
tone―along with the fact that some man was staring fiercely at
him―increased Drew’s confidence he wasn’t dreaming. He’d had some
debauched fantasies in his life, but never had a man been in any of
them.
    Drew curled his fingers tighter around
Char’s warm, silky arms. Normally, he prided himself in the ability
to remember precise details of situations and people, but even his
memory was not so superb that he’d been able to perfectly conjure
up the way his heart jerked when she was near, the way her smell of
freesia immediately relaxed him, or the way her burning skin warmed
him to his soul.
    This was definitely real. Char was here, in
the flesh, an answer to a prayer he’d been too ashamed―too
afraid―to plead. He breathed deeply of her and pulled her
close.
    “Char,” he whispered in her ear, the soft
curls of her fiery red hair tickling his nose.
    “Let me go, you drunken imbecile.” Char’s
slippered foot ground down on his toe in a manner that certainly
did not say, “I forgive you.”
    Let her go?
    Ha, ha, and bloody ha. He’d sooner
cut off his hand than let her go a second time. Fate had finally
decided to crown him the golden son again, and he was not about to
argue with fate. Though his mind was a bit fuzzy from the copious
amounts of liquor he’d consumed to withstand the choppy boat
journey from France and―if he was being honest, which from time to
time he managed to be with himself―to forget the flaming-haired
temptress glaring at him, he was determined to embrace this gift
and immediately set