Free Wicked Becomes You by Meredith Duran

hesitated. “All right, then. It’s a list of reasons I hate him.”
    “I’ll have the truth,” he said flatly.
    “That is the truth!” Her finger caught up a loose strand of hair, twining it around her knuckle. Biting her lip and peering up at him, she looked like a very good approximation of a barroom flirt.
    A more annoying development he could not imagine. He relied on her to look prim and untouchable. “Leave your hair alone,” he snapped.
    Her hand dropped. She gave him a marveling look. “You’re quite beastly, you know.”
    “You’re only now realizing this? I would have assumed the gossips might inform you. Failing them, Belinda.”
    “Yes, but . . .” Her eyes narrowed. “Alex,” she said. “Belinda tells me all the time how much you loathe when Lord Weston tries to bully you. Why should you do the same to me? Let me have my letter.”
    He laughed, surprised by this devious turn. “Oh, that’s well done, Gwen. Yes, it’s true, of all the roles I might play, the bully is not my favorite. But when you’re determined to play the idiot—”
    “I am not playing the idiot!” She grabbed again for the letter.
    He stepped backward, holding the envelope above her reach. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said. “Pennington’s run off. He’s not here to receive your notes.”
    The news visibly stunned her. Mouth agape, she retreated a pace toward the stairs. “Run off?” she whispered.
    “Train to Dover, bound for the Continent. I’m sorry,” he added. “He’s a piece of filth.”
    “But he has my ring!”
    He felt a brief flicker of amazement: she had purchased the wedding bands? Had the viscount done nothing for this match?
    Why had she been content to sell herself so cheaply?
    And then, looking at her face, a new possibility occurred to him. “Richard’s ring.”
    “Yes!”
    Christ. He remembered all too clearly her face as he had placed that ring in her palm. He sighed. “I’ll get it back, then.”
    Her wide eyes looked dazed. She seemed to look through him at some disastrous scene, miles distant. “But if he’s taken it abroad with him—”
    “His first stop will be Paris, no doubt, and I’m bound for there tomorrow.” And then, because she was still staring in that broken, addled way that put him disturbingly in mind of a vacant-eyed doll, he added, “Don’t fret, sweetheart. You’ll have it back soon enough. And for the man himself, consider yourself well rid of him.”
    She blinked and focused on him. A curious look crossed her face. The sudden slant of her mouth seemed almost . . . calculating.
    “All right,” she said slowly. “You want to read the letter? I’ll read it to you myself, if you like. But only if you promise to do a favor in return.”
    His instincts stirred, bidding caution.
    How ridiculous. Hell, maybe hysteria was catching. Gwen was as harmless as a rabbit. “Ask away,” he said and started to break the seal.
    “Not here!” She threw a quick glance around. Now she looked almost feverish—bright spots of color on her pale cheeks, and an odd glitter in her eyes. “Discretion, Alex! The library will do.”
    The strange smile she gave him before turning on her heel made his instincts rise up again, clanging.
    Misfiring, misfiring. Rabbit , he told himself and fell in step behind her for the library.



Chapter Four

    Striding down from the corridor toward a new and better chapter in her life, Gwen felt transformed. For one thing, she was striding. Before, she had only drifted. Secondly, she was leading—and leading Alex Ramsey, no less! Alex never followed anybody’s lead. It seemed a considerable accomplishment, akin to hooking a bull by the nose.
    In fact, by the time she threw open the door to the library, she felt well underway to becoming a smashing success at this routine. On the table in the center of the room lay a volume on womanly virtues that Elma had been reading to her as she’d knitted in the evenings. She would throw it into