Free Captivated by a Lady's Charm (Lords of Honor Book 2) by Christi Caldwell

“Ah, yes, you are the goddess of my heart…”
    Lucinda waved a hand before his face, snapping him to the moment. “Hullo, Christian. Do attend me. We are discussing you being in love.”
    His lips pulled in an involuntary grimace at those remembrances of his younger, naïve self, and his hopefully optimistic sister’s innocence. God, that he’d ever been so bloody green.
    “Why did you do that?” Suspicion laced Lucinda’s inquiry.
    Bloody hell, she didn’t miss a blasted thing. “Why did I do what?”
    She jabbed a finger at his mouth. “You frowned as though you sucked on a tart lemon.”
    “Aren’t all lemons tart?” he countered in a bid to halt her relentless questioning.
    “Christian.” The entreaty in that one word filled Lucinda’s eyes. “Surely you know you must wed and it must be to a woman whom you care for.”
    Ah God. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes. At her innocent, too-truthful words, panic settled like a stone in his belly. For there would have to be a wife. Either wed, secure their wealth and Lucinda’s future at the expense of some other woman’s sacrifice or lose everything. Christian firmed his jaw. He had no choice. But he’d not enter into a union carrying some weak-willed thoughts of love for the woman he’d wed. Lady Prudence Tidemore flashed to mind once more and he immediately thrust the lady’s visage back. The Earl of Sinclair’s sister was too young, too innocent, and everything his roguish self had avoided these past eight years. For all the damage wrought by Lynette, she’d at least left him this valuable lesson.
    “You’ve gone all quiet,” his sister said softly.
    He adopted an unaffected tone. “I am not discussing matters of the heart with you.”
    “That is fine,” his sister conceded. “We shall speak of the ball, instead. Did you dance all evening?”
    “I danced…” A number of sets with several young women who fit his criteria for the role of marchioness. They were those title-grasping ladies whom the papers reported would never settle for anything less than a marquess. Which made him the perfect candidate for any one of them—after all, was there a more perfect match for a fortune hunter than a title hunter? Disgust tightened the muscles of his stomach with this, his latest fall from honor.
    Only one lady, however, danced to the forefront of his mind. One who with her wide, hopeful eyes and whispery sighs assuredly did not fit with his criteria.
    His sister waved a hand. “Hullo, Christian. Do pay attention. What did you dance this evening? A waltz? A quadrille? A reel?”
    “I danced a number of sets.”
    Lucinda drummed her fingertips on the arm of the cracked leather chair. “How many sets?”
    “Seven,” he lied. Christian didn’t have a single idea. He only recalled the one.
    She continued with her rapid fire questions. “What did you drink?”
    “Champagne.”
    “Was it splendid?”
    He inclined his head. “Indeed.”
    His sister narrowed her eyes. “How many glasses did you consume?”
    “Flutes,” he corrected. “And it is none of your affair.” None of her intrusive questions were. Christian sighed. He’d always hopelessly indulged her.
    “Were you smitten by any young woman?”
    He snorted. “I am not a man smitten by anyone or anything.” He’d not be that man again.
    His sister swung her legs over the arm of the chair, dangling them over the side. “I daresay I do not know how you can possibly be the rogue the papers purport you to be when you are so hopelessly unromantic in all matters.”
    “Stop reading the blasted papers,” he commanded. God knows what else his sister had read about her worthless brother within those scandal sheets. He looked over to the well-stocked sideboard. The only well-stocked anything left by the previous marquess and he craved a drink. For his sister in her innocence was unerringly on the mark. There was nothing romantic of his life. He was a man who lived with the sins of his past