Free Secrets of Surrender by Madeline Hunter Page A

wait.” He opened a cupboard, grabbed a wine bottle and two glasses, and led the way to a table at a window overlooking the Cheapside street below his chambers.
    The December sky hung low and gray. A pleasant fire crackled nearby. The wrought-iron chairs were similar to those found on terraces and balconies in France. Jean Pierre had reconstructed a bit of his homeland at this window, one that always evoked Kyle’s memories of his years there.
    The education at the École had been rigorous and illuminating, but other lessons had been learned in Paris as well. There had been a sexual curriculum, of course. Jean Pierre had seen to that. More interesting had been witnessing a changing view of society. Napoleon was dead, the Revolution was long over, and a king reigned again, but a generation of cries of
égalité
had altered the French perspective forever.
    Not completely, of course. Even in France, when it came to marriage blood was blood. The difference was that the entire country did not accept that blood should rule every area of life.
    Was that why Cottington had sent him there? The earl was no radical. More likely he had chosen France because of Norbury, who had begun to chafe back then at his father’s continuing role of benefactor.
    “I am thinking of getting married.” Kyle stretched out his legs and tried to get comfortable. He was much taller than Jean Pierre, and the iron chairs, while picturesque, left something to be desired. “I have not decided whether to offer, but I am considering it.”
    “The soil lady?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is she truly a lady?”
    “Yes, but like your mam’selle Janette that first year I knew you.”
    “Ah,
oui.
High birth, corrupt relatives, no money.” Jean Pierre raised his glass. “And, from the looks of those tubes over there, weak soil. Congratulations.”
    “You do not approve.”
    “She will remind you every day of your life that you are not good enough for her. You will empty your purse in the vain attempt to make her happy. Your own children will see you as their inferior. No, I do not approve.”
    He could always count on Jean Pierre to be blunt. He knew from his experience with French that subtlety was the last thing learned in a new language, and often never achieved.
    So there it was, a damned good reason to decline Easterbrook’s grand plan. The marquess might see this as a minor concern, but since he lived at the top of the heap he would not comprehend just how big an objection it could be.
    “Who is this lady?” Jean Pierre’s eyes narrowed on him.
    “Miss Longworth.”
    “I wondered if not. It is so like you English.” He sat forward with his arms on the table. “Because of your chivalry you now feel responsible. She is beautiful and flatters you with her gratitude. So now you feel obligated to save her from the rest.”
    Jean Pierre was filling in the marquess’s play quite nicely, and touching on more truths than Kyle wanted to admit.
    “Let me tell you how it really was with those damsels in peril,
mon ami.
We have the old songs and
romans
still in my country, so we know the truth. The knight saved the lovely lady, who was very grateful. Then he took her into the field beside the road, stripped her, fucked her good, then got back on his horse and rode away.”
    Kyle had to laugh. “That is damned close to a dream I had last night.”
    “Your dreams know that you do not have to marry her if you are sympathetic and want her. She will be glad for anything now. Why would you marry such a woman, about whom your whole country talks?”
    Why indeed? Mostly because he did want her, and he liked to think himself better than those vultures like Norbury. Maybe because fate had created the rare situation in which she might actually accept.
    That was not to say that he had not considered the alternative. She had been seduced once, and his visit had convinced him that she could probably be seduced again. Especially by the knight.
    “There would be a