Free A Season of Seduction by Jennifer Haymore Page A

Moments later, he’d stepped out, apparently unharmed. Becky had spent the remainder of the evening praying that Jack was similarly healthy.
Leaving Kate, she went downstairs. At the door to Garrett’s study, she pressed her hands nervously over her cherry-striped taffeta skirts and fidgeted with the blond frill at her neckline. Then, taking a great gulping breath, she knocked.
“Come in,” Garrett called, his voice gruff.
She pushed open the door, took a step forward, and then froze as her brother—and Jack—rose from their chairs.
“Rebecca,” her brother said from across his gleaming mahogany desk.
Jack, who had risen from the mint-green velvet armchair opposite Garrett, gave a silent bow. He was dressed more finely than she’d ever seen him, in an embroidered dark wine waistcoat, a crisply tied cravat, dark gray trousers, and a black cutaway tailcoat that emphasized his broad shoulders and narrow waist.
“Good afternoon, Garrett.” Her voice was shaky, breathless. “Mr. Fulton. I—I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Jack glanced at Garrett and then gave her an easy smile. “His Grace and I agreed to meet to discuss the… unfortunate event that occurred last night.”
“I see.” With precise movements, she turned to close the door. The finality of the click resonated through her skull.
She turned back to the gentlemen, who still stood facing her. Unclenching her fingers, she forced her shoulders to settle and inclined her head at Jack. “I’m relieved to see you in one piece.”
“If I had known you feared for me,” he said in a quiet voice, “I would have reassured you that I am very difficult to break, my lady.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Keeping her back perfectly straight and her chin high, she crossed the carpeted floor and sat in the floral-print armchair beside Jack’s. On that signal, the men returned to their chairs.
She tried to muster a smile at him as she ran her fingers over the roses embroidered on the arms of the chair. Awareness of his proximity, even after all that had happened, rang through her veins.
His smile carved grooves, too deep to be called dimples, in his cheeks. His eyes sparkled when he smiled, and his lips… oh, his wickedly erotic lips…
Garrett cleared his throat, and she tore her gaze from Jack to look at her brother. He sat as stiffly as his high, heavily starched collar, his narrow gaze focused on both of them.
He slid a pamphlet across the sleek surface of his desk. “It has already been printed.”
Becky’s heart surged to her throat. Jack took the paper and lowered it before him, his lips tightening.
“What?” she whispered. “What is it?”
Without a word, he handed it to her.
The open page showed a caricature of her and Jack. They were in bed in an indecent position. The artist had drawn enormous beads of sweat dripping from them both, and they both stared wide-eyed and gaping at the door, which overflowed with people holding lanterns. Becky’s oval face was long and exaggerated, and her straight, dark hair flowed over the blankets. The artist had grossly misjudged the size of her breasts and had drawn them as enormous white globes of flesh as big as her head and spilling over the edge of the blanket, everything but her nipples showing.
At the forefront of the crowd stood Garrett pointing a pistol at them both, his face twisted in rage and the scar over his eyebrow flaming like a sun.
The caption read: “Society’s hypocrisy—England’s pious widows frigid by day but eager by night.”
She gazed down at it. She would stay calm. She would be strong. Scandal would not touch her.
Becky lowered the paper to her lap and looked up at her brother and Jack, who studied her with guarded expressions.
“Well,” she said. “This is unfortunate. But expected.”
“I am disappointed in you, Rebecca,” Garrett said.
“Because I said this was expected? Well, it was.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m disappointed that you… that you met with a man in this