Free Provoked by Joanna Chambers Page A

before he turned to Elizabeth.
    “And Miss Elizabeth,” he said. “How nice to see you again.”
    “Mr. Lauriston,” she replied, smiling widely. “I hear you’re working with Father on one of his cases. I’m delighted you could join us this evening. It is a most unexpected pleasure to see you again.”
    “The delight is all mine,” David said gallantly, enjoying the way her face became brighter and more attractive as they conversed. She was an unremarkable-looking girl when she was silent, but when she spoke, her face was transformed. He couldn’t remember ever seeing someone so expressive.
    “Has Father told you we have another gentleman joining us this evening?” Her dark eyes twinkled with merriment. “He is the younger son of a marquess, no less! We are all terribly excited to be meeting such a grand personage.”
    “So I have heard,” David said, lips twitching. Plainly, whatever her mother thought, Elizabeth was not overawed at the thought of dining with a peer of the realm.
    At that moment, the man they were speaking of arrived.
    The footman entered first. “Lord Murdo Balfour, sir,” he said, addressing Mr. Chalmers.
    David thought stupidly, I know that name . For the briefest instant, he didn’t connect it with the man at whose feet he’d knelt.
    And then he saw him.
    Murdo Balfour stood behind the footman, tall, broad-shouldered and expensively dressed. Familiar, yet not.
    All of David’s ease left him, leeching away as his gut began to churn and his breath constricted in his throat. As their gazes met and held.
    Yes, it was him. The man from the inn at Stirling. The man who’d stroked David’s cock in a filthy alleyway; whose own cock David had got down on his knees to suck.
    He gave no sign of recognising David, but somehow David was sure he did, and then his gaze was moving on, honing in on Mr. Chalmers who was moving forward to greet him.
    “Lord Murdo,” Chalmers said, offering his hand. “Welcome to my home.”
    “Mr. Chalmers, I presume. I’m very pleased to meet you, sir.”
    “My wife has been detained a moment. She will be back in a—”
    “Good heavens, Lord Murdo! How mortifying that I wasn’t here to greet you!” Mrs. Chalmers bustled into the room, her voice high and excited, her colour up. “So good of you to come! You have met my husband?”
    Balfour smiled at her. “We have introduced ourselves, Mrs. Chalmers. How nice to see you again.”
    Mrs. Chalmers gave an oddly girlish titter. “Well, then, I only need to introduce you to our daughters, my lord. They are all very excited to meet you.”
    “Don’t forget Mr. Lauriston, Mother,” Elizabeth said, earning herself a maternal frown. She wasn’t to know that David was only too happy to linger in the background.
    Good God, the man was a lord . The younger son of a marquess. He hadn’t divulged that nugget at the inn in Stirling.
    Balfour’s attention wandered back to David, despite being surrounded by the Chalmers girls—yes, he knew who David was all right. Their gazes met over one of the younger girl’s heads, and David couldn’t look away. His attention was snagged, like cloth catching on a nail.
    It was only for a moment, but it felt like forever that they stared at each other. As for Balfour, he didn’t smile as such, but there was something in his face. Something still and knowing, though he was the first to look away.
    Eventually it was David’s turn to be introduced to the guest of honour.
    “And this is Mr. Lauriston,” Mrs. Chalmers said in her most chilly voice as she approached him, Balfour at her side. “He’s working on a case with Mr. Chalmers at present.” She paused, then added grudgingly, “Mr. Lauriston, Lord Murdo Balfour.”
    Balfour put out his hand, the hint of a smile playing over his well-shaped lips. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Lauriston.”
    His hand was steady. His voice likewise, the warm depth of it caressing, that English-sounding accent smooth and mellifluous,