Twice the Temptation Read Free Page A

dishevelment was rather…appealing. Evangeline took a breath. “I’ll tell you that my name is not Daisy.”
     
      “Yes, I realized that almost immediately. What is your name?”
     
      “I am Miss Munroe,” she finally said. “Now please climb back into your coach before you fall down again.”
     
      He assessed her for a moment, then gave a charming, lopsided smile. “That’s likely very good advice, Miss Munroe.”
     
      Before he could continue, Evangeline turned her back and with Doretta’s help hauled herself up into her own vehicle again. He wasn’t actually attempting to flirt with her, was he? Heavens. Yes, he was handsome, but he’d practically crushed her, and then mauled her. She would remember that, even if he didn’t. “Drive on, Maywing,” she said, closing the door on the fellow’s inebriated smile.
     
      As she sat, she eyed the box holding her new necklace. If she believed in any of that superstitious nonsense, she would say that Aunt Rachel had it backward. She’d been perfectly fine until she’d set it aside. Bad luck, ha. She would wear it tonight, just to prove her aunt wrong. If the diamond held any luck at all, which she doubted, it wasgood luck.
     
      Chapter 2
     
      Connoll Spencer Addison, the very intoxicatedMarquis of Rawley, watched Miss Munroe’s coach as it rolled over someone’s cigar—probably his—and a thick book—probably not his. Leaning a hand against his carriage’s wheel to steady himself, Connoll squatted down and retrieved the tome.
     
      “The Rights of Women,” he read, flipping it over. “Not a bit surprised by that.”
     
      “M’lord?”
     
      “Nothing, Epping,” he said to his coachman. “Take me home, and for God’s sake don’t hit anything else. It’s been the devil of a night, and I do not wish my sleep interrupted again.”
     
      “Yes, m’lord.” The driver climbed back up to his perch. Connoll returned to the coach’s dim interior, tossed the book onto the seat opposite, and sank back to resume his sleep and try to forget about a certain mistress who’d decided to marry—though thankfully not him. Blasted Daisy Applegate.
     
      Abruptly he sat forward again. He’d kissed the chit,Miss Mun…Mun something. Yes, he’d kissed Miss Someone, and that could be bad. Not unpleasant, but bad. Kissing a Miss in public was always bad. He was generally much more careful about the setting for that sort of activity.
     
      Finally he realized that the coach had stopped rocking, and that the usual noise of London seemed rather subdued. And his head ached like the devil. “Damnation,” he muttered, and thumped on the ceiling with his fist. “Epping, if we’re lost, I will toss you out of my employment on your bloody backside.”
     
      Nothing.
     
      “Epping!”
     
      Frowning, Connoll stood and shoved open the coach’s door. They were indeed stopped. They were stopped to such a degree that the horses were gone from their harnesses, and a pair of geese waddled between the near coach wheels in his stable yard.
     
      He grabbed up the chit’s book. Avoiding the geese, he stepped to the ground and stalked around the side of the house to his front door. It swung open as he topped the steps.
     
      “Good afternoon, Lord Rawley.”
     
      Afternoon. “Winters, how long was I asleep in the damned coach in the damned stable yard?”
     
      “Nearly three hours, my lord. Epping said you’d expressly requested that you not be disturbed.”
     
      “By his wrecking the coach again, yes, that half-wit. I didn’t mean for him to leave me boxed up and ready for delivery.”
     
      “I shall inform him of his error, my lord.”
     
      Connoll headed for the stairs, shedding his coat as he went. “And send me Hodges. I want a bath.”
     
      “Very good, my lord.”
     
      Heneeded a bath, and a shave, and a change of clothes. With a glance at the book he carried, Connoll shook his head. However much he