Family Scandals (42 page)

“Then I excite you?” he pressed in a low voice.

“A lady wouldn’t answer such a query,” she replied. The pertness of her words softened with the long audible sigh as he lowered his mouth to kiss the spot below her ear where her pulse beat most fiercely.

“That’s all right,” Jude murmured, as he slid his hand from her breast up the length of her throat to press under her jaw. His gentle urging eased her head back and to the side. Anna’s eyes drifted closed just as his warm breath chased across her lips. “You already did,” he whispered.

Then his mouth lowered to claim hers in a burning kiss.

Oddly, Anna’s first thought was of Leif, and the one time he had stolen a kiss from her. He had been drunk and in a playful mood and had pulled her down into his lap and planted a kiss on her lips before she had even known it was coming. Although he’d apologized afterward, she hadn’t regretted it. It had been short and swift, and Anna remembered being grateful he hadn’t been in a state of mind to use his full arsenal of skills in that kiss. As it was, the experience had been more than pleasant and had left Anna just a bit shaken afterward.

But even that experience with one of the most practiced and celebrated lovers in England was nothing in comparison to what she felt the instant Jude’s lips touched hers.

The bright and flashing passion took her by surprise.

After no more than a second, Jude turned her in his arms and hauled her up against him in a full embrace. He growled quietly as she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself to the kiss. She had no choice in the matter. Every bit of common sense had fled from her consciousness. She wanted to be closer. She wanted to feel more of his heat, more of the delicious desire pouring from his kiss.

Her fervent wish was granted as his hand slid into her carefully constructed coiffure to cup the back of her head. He positioned her so the kiss could go deeper. She drew a sharp breath, expanding her lungs and crushing her breasts against his solid chest. His tongue forced entrance and she gasped at the wicked sense of possession. Their tongues mated in a furious dance and she felt as though she may never get enough. The taste of his mouth was an intoxicating combination of fire and need, and the encompassing warmth of his arms secured her to him like a vice from which she had no wish to escape.

She was drowning, sinking deeply into the overwhelming desire that pulsed through her.

Wait! This is all wrong
, a voice shouted in her head. Alarm speared icily through her body. She’d never intended the deception to go so far. She had underestimated the situation by drastic degrees.

Unwrapping her arms from around his neck, she pressed her palms against his shoulders and arched away from his kiss.

“Enough,” she muttered on a ragged gasp.

“Not nearly,” Jude replied as his mouth fell to the lengthened curve of her throat.

Chills chased over her skin and she closed her eyes again as she fought the burning temptation to sink back down into the whirlwind of passion. She managed to grasp onto one delicate detail in her mind that reinforced her need to escape.

He still had no idea who she was.

“I said enough,” she repeated more forcefully as she shoved free from his hold. She took two stumbling steps back, though it didn’t appear to be necessary as he did not reach for her. His arms dropped to his sides and he eyed her with lust and tension.

Anna fought to regain her breath and her composure. She met his gaze and his eyes burned bright with the flames of unspent passion. Need pierced her core.

She was surprised to feel the tears pricking behind her eyes as reality set in.

She hadn’t expected this to be so painful. She thought herself to be well past the feelings of betrayal and disillusionment that had consumed her when she had been young and first married. Her daring little escapade tonight had succeeded beyond her expectations. In case she had harbored any doubt, she now had undeniable proof her husband was as wickedly adulterous as the stories had always claimed. She’d also learned she was not nearly as strong as she thought.

“I didn’t think I could still be so foolish and naïve,” she whispered with a shaky little laugh as she lifted her hands to untie the ribbons of her mask.

“What the hell are you…?” Jude started, but as she lowered the mask from her face, his question trailed off and his glowering expression deepened.

She wondered what he was thinking as he stared at her then. Mostly, he looked annoyed and frustrated and still passionately aroused. Anna returned his stare, her chin lifted high, her eyes direct and challenging. She blinked away her threatening tears and recalled all the reasons she had to hate him.

“What's the matter, Jude?” she asked finally, pleased to find her voice steady and confident. “Nothing to say?”

“You know me?” he asked stiffly.

“That depends upon your definition of
knowing
, my lord,” Anna replied with a harsh twist of her lips.

Jude narrowed his gaze and his voice took on an almost menacing tone. “I am not a man to find enjoyment in dark pranks or willful subterfuge. It would be best if you disclose your identity and your purpose.”

“You really haven’t figured it out yet?” Anna asked then, surprised he hadn’t put it all together. “You said earlier that it wouldn’t matter if I were married.” She paused, but he remained silent and waited for her to continue. “What about your wife, my lord? Does she matter?”

Jude’s expression blackened. “I have no wife.”

Anna laughed then, a rough and raw sound. “I beg to differ, my lord husband.”

Family Scandals

Denise Patrick

Her family has a death wish. For her.

Lord Marcus Waring married Corinna Houghton with the best of intentions—to protect her should anything happen to her brother while both he and Marcus are serving in India. That the child bride is underage is but a small footnote in his family’s long history of scandal.

News that his wife has died in a carriage accident stabs him with regret, but with no reason to question the report, he extends his stay until another near-scandal brings him home—eight years after his secret marriage.

Corinna is in hiding. Alone in the world after her parents’ deaths, despised by her family, unwanted even by the husband who seems to have forgotten her. When she discovers her temporary governess position is in the home of Marcus’s brother, she holds out a secret hope that she will at last learn his whereabouts.

When wife and erstwhile husband meet again, it is as strangers. Gentle, fragile sparks of attraction and trust flicker to life, but their respective dark histories threaten to overshadow any possibility of happiness. Especially when it becomes clear that someone in her family still wishes her dead.

Warning: Marrying someone in the middle of the night, without a license, at age fourteen, might be a tad illegal, but love doesn’t care about legalities.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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Family Scandals

Copyright © 2012 by Denise Patrick

ISBN: 978-1-61921-040-0

Edited by Sue Ellen Gower

Cover by Kim Killion

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: August 2012

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