Free For Love of the Earl by Jessie Clever

fiercely at him.  
    Alec tried the knob of the door and found it turned easily in his hand.   He would remember to thank his brother later for his excellent talent with locks.  
    "Because my wife hasn't the experience at this yet.   She's only been at it a few months."
    A sharp gasp from somewhere behind them sounded like a firework going off in a church service.   Alec spun around, Lady Cavanaugh doing the same and almost sending both of them falling.  
    A young woman in a pale pink gown stood a few feet away from them, lightning playing across her horror stricken features.   Her little pink mouth formed an "O" of surprise, and the sausage curls framing her delicate, child-like face trembled.  
    Alec still had his hands on Lady Cavanaugh's shoulders, so he pulled her against him and ground his mouth down on hers.   Her lips tasted like sawdust, and he suddenly very much wanted to see Sarah.   So he ended the kiss more forcefully than he intended, but he doubted their youthful watcher would notice the awkwardness.  
    "Perhaps, you can be next, my lady," Alec grinned and winked at the girl while giving a most gracious bow in her direction.  
    The young woman grabbed her chest and leaned heavily against the wall seeming to have lost all support in her legs.  
    Alec pulled Lady Cavanaugh into the library, just barely keeping himself from slamming the door on their innocent intruder.   He leaned back against the hard wooden panels instead of bashing his fists into them.   Tales of his haltingly dreadful kiss in the hallway were going to be created, edited, modified, exaggerated and twisted so that by the time they reached Sarah they were going to have Lady Cavanaugh half naked in the hallway with his trousers undone and nearly to his knees.   Hell, he may even have the lady up against the wall ready to-
    Alec propelled himself away from the door, no longer interested in wallowing in the self-pity created from all of the horrible stories he knew his wife was bound to hear.  
    "That was really rather clever of you, Alec, but your wife-"  
    "I know," he cut her off.
    "She's very new at this," Lady Cavanaugh persisted, "And she may not be as adept at keeping up appearances if she is suddenly confronted with rumors of this incident."  
    Alec paused to look at her.   He had not been thinking of it along those lines.   He had only worried that Sarah may think he did not, in fact, love the woman he was married to.
    "I will be sure to educate her on the matter," he said, forcing the thought of embracing another woman and having to explain such a thing to his wife.    
    Alec moved toward the large windows behind the only desk in the oddly small library.   Alec had expected the library to be larger in a house such as this.   A manor house should have an extensive library, he thought, but since Alec really never spent time in any library, including his own, he really didn't know if his thoughts were accurate at all.  
    Lightning flashed in the windows, and Alec looked at Lady Cavanaugh.   She held up her hands and shook her head, sending her dark hair swinging.  
    "I've got it together now, Stryden.   I promise not to embarrass myself at the boom of thunder." Her bright golden eyes flashed in the darkness, and Alec felt moderately better about having kissed a woman who was not his wife.   After all, he had only kissed Lady Cavanaugh.   And how many times had he done that before?   Surely, by now the kisses were meaningless.   Hell, all kisses seemed to have become meaningless.   The only ones that mattered never happened and never appeared to might happen in the near future.  
    Bloody hell, there was that self-pity again.  
    Alec pulled open the first drawer of the desk with enough force to dislodge it from the desk.   Lady Cavanaugh didn't say a word about it but started sorting through the stacks of books on the various odd tables scattered through out the room.   The light from the furious storm cast