The Sins of Viscount Sutherland (21 page)
Read The Sins of Viscount Sutherland Online
Authors: Samantha James
This time a huff of laughter did escape. No female crossed swords with him, no matter how high born.
Miss Smith provided a refreshing change.
Perhaps that was why he found her so compelling. He couldn’t possibly have developed a taste for hatchet-faced maypoles with sharp tongues and no dress sense.
“Miss Smith,” he murmured in a silky voice, “if you seek to discourage, you’re failing miserably. The prospect of besting you becomes irresistible.”
Still she didn’t take warning. Her chin tipped at a defiant angle. “Prove yourself a better man than the world believes and resist temptation, Lord Ranelaw.”
A smile curled his lips. She was delicious. Tart like lemon curd. A sharp, fresh taste that wouldn’t pall. Oh, he’d have her in his bed. She’d be his reward for ruining the poppet.
“Temptation is impossible to resist. That’s what makes it temptation.”
“You would know.”
“Miss Smith, you’d be amazed at what I know,” he said with as much salacious emphasis as he could manage. And a man with his experience could manage a great deal.
Through her spectacles, he felt her withering glance. Brava, Miss Smith. Seducing this woman would be like training a leopard to eat from his hand. She hissed and snarled now, but under a master’s tutelage, she’d learn to purr.
“Lord Ranelaw . . .” she began, an edge to her voice.
The promise of a tongue-lashing was devilishly exciting. What a pity he couldn’t whisk her away and teach her to use that tongue for other purposes altogether.
The wench would have an apoplexy if she could read his mind.
Although something told him little disconcerted the stalwart Miss Smith. No wonder she was accounted the dragon of chaperones. Ranelaw rather liked casting himself as St. George. And this St. George would steal away both maiden and monster. Lucky fellow.
“Toni?”
Cassandra Demarest’s uncertain question exploded into the tension bristling between him and the chaperone like a grenade tossed into an enemy line. With a reluctance he resented, Ranelaw wrenched his gaze from the outwardly uninteresting woman who so inexplicably aroused the strongest interest he’d felt in a donkey’s age. He found himself and Miss Smith the cynosure of all eyes, and most of those eyes glinted with speculation and curiosity.
Hell, this was the last thing he wanted. His sudden decision to pursue the chaperone was purely a private matter, whereas he wanted his interest in the Demarest girl to become the talk of the
ton
.
Miss Smith’s fine, pale skin reddened with humiliation. Her gloved hands strangled her plain black reticule. Ranelaw’s lips twitched—he knew whom she really wanted to strangle.
A companion’s employment relied on pristine reputation. An extended conversation with the notorious Marquess of Ranelaw would do Miss Smith no good. No wonder she looked furious enough to release a blast of dragon fire upon her tormenter.
Not that she glanced at him.
“Cassie, did you require something?” Ranelaw heard how hard she worked to steady her low voice.
Cassandra, to her credit, looked troubled rather than annoyed at her chaperone’s lapse. “I was wondering if we received cards for the Bradhams’ musicale.”
Miss Smith’s color heightened. In that moment as a blush warmed her creamy skin, Ranelaw’s suspicion cemented into certainty. This was no aging spinster. The woman behind those tinted spectacles was young. Young and ripe for a man’s picking.
His
picking.
It was
SAMANTHA JAMES
’s love of reading as a child that steered her toward a writing career. Among her favorites in those days were the Trixie Belden and Cherry Ames series of books. She still loves a blend of mystery and romance, and, of course, a happily-ever-after ending. The award-winning,
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of eighteen romances and one novella, her books have ranged from medieval to Regency.
Please visit her on the web at
www.samanthajames.com
.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
T
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INS OF
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RIDE OF A
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Sandra Kleinschmit
Excerpt from
Midnight’s Wild Passion
copyright © 2011 by Anna Campbell
EPub Edition JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780062079596
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
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