Free The Haunting of a Duke by Chasity Bowlin Page A

that different from Pommeroy himself.
    Emme knew that he had rescued her, but she couldn't for the life of her determine why. Perhaps, she mused, thinking her a lunatic rather than an opportunist, he felt pity for her. He had apparently known just the trick to distract Lord Pommeroy from his lecherous attentions toward her.
    She watched him from beneath lowered lashes as she sipped her wine. While her experience with men was very limited, she had to acknowledge, at least to herself, that what she felt for him was more than just attraction, or even infatuation.
    It was visceral and unrelenting. It was also a very dangerous thing for her, as well as futile. She was well below his station. Men of his standing did not marry women of hers, and anything other than marriage was unacceptable. Her family was clinging to respectability by the slenderest of threads. Even one brief lapse would ruin not only her, but her younger sister as well. Larissa deserved a chance to have a season and to find love, and given her exquisite beauty, Emme did not doubt that all of London would be swooning at her sister's feet, as long as she was given the opportunity.
    A little voice inside her declared that she was entitled to happiness too, but she pushed that voice aside in favor of logic. Given the complications in his indecision between thinking her mentally challenged or morally bankrupt, the attraction was hopeless at any rate, and best ignored. She repeated that to herself in endless variation, and still couldn't stop her traitorous gaze from feasting upon him.
    With his restrained, and some would say austere clothing, he was unlike any other gentleman present. He avoided the garishly colored waistcoats that so many favored and also eschewed the various fobs and ornamentation of other, more dandyish, gentlemen. Remembering how he had looked in only his shirtsleeves, with his broad shoulders and heavily muscled arms, she knew that he had no need of padding to create his divinely masculine form. His hand, when he had taken hers, had been warm, strong and slightly ridged with calluses.
    She felt her face flaming as she recalled that touch and how her heart had pounded. Emme fanned herself and tried not to consider the cause of her heated flush.
    The meal ended and the mallets and wickets for a game of Pall Mall were produced. Emme smiled politely but declined Lord Pommeroy's invitation to partner her in the game.
    Given the manner in which he leered at her bosom, she could only imagine how he would leer at her bottom when she leaned forward to hit the ball with the mallet. Instead, she retrieved her reticule and the slim volume of poetry she'd tucked into it that morning and sought a quiet spot beneath a tree.
    Lord Ellersleigh appeared almost immediately.
    "Are you still reading ‘not Shakespeare’ today?"
    Emme sighed. She was not to have a moment's peace it seemed. “It is Byron actually, Lord Ellersleigh."
    "Ah,” he said. “I'm not a fan, I must say. I knew him at Harrow."
    Emme gave him a puzzled glance. “Do you have to like the man to enjoy the words?"
    Michael appeared to be somewhat startled by her question. “Well, no, Miss Walters. I suppose you do not. Perhaps I will read it and give it a fair chance, then."
    He wouldn't, Emme knew. But he was charming, and unlike being in the presence of Rhys, she could still breathe when Lord Ellersleigh was beside her.
    "I saw you speaking with His Grace. Are you here to guard me from Lord Pommeroy, or to guard everyone else so I don't pick their unsuspecting pockets?"
    Michael chuckled before responding, “I am here simply to ensure that Lord Pommeroy maintains a suitable distance from your person."
    He had his own personal agenda, however. He wanted information about Melisande from her, and he wanted to make Rhys jealous. He'd never seen the man become so bothered by a female. In point of fact, he'd never seen Rhys react so strongly to any woman.
    His friend had never gone without female