Free The School for Brides by Cheryl Ann Smith

the room in the rustle of heavy skirts.
    A hard smile tugged at his mouth. He wanted to chase after her and paddle her bottom red. But it was an unexpected discovery that stayed his feet and set his mind reeling. In the moment she’d spun about and raced for the door, he’d noticed a lock of burnished gold and fire red tumble out from beneath her severe brown bun like the hues of breaking dawn.
    There was much more to the dowdy spinster than he ever suspected. And he intended to discover all her secrets.
     
     
    E va raced down the sidewalk toward the waiting carriage. She pressed a gloved hand to her mouth and swiped the duke’s taste from her lips.
    Erasing him from her mind would be more difficult. In the instant between his kiss and her bite, her body had exploded in a riot of unexpected sensations. She’d felt flushed and confused as the most intimate part of her pulsed with what she could only think was a visceral reaction to the kiss.
    Even now, as the cool wind blew around her, she felt both feverish and cold at the same time. The despicable duke had marked her with his kiss, stolen bits of her with his sensuous assault, and she feared she might never get those pieces back.
    It took will to keep her feet moving forward when she wanted to slump to her knees in despair. The wretch had kissed her! No man had ever taken such liberties. Even now she felt one of his hands on the small of her back and the other hand, rough and male, encircling her neck as he bent his face to hers.
    She steeled her emotions. “Please, Harold, take me home.”
    Harold helped her into the carriage, looking back at the town house with a vicious scowl.
    Eva rushed to soothe his anger. “His Grace did not hurt me. Not physically.” Then she looked away to hide the blush on her cheeks. Not by hand or weapon anyway.
    Harold tensed. “So it was the duke.”
    She nodded. “Yes.”
     
     
    I t wasn’t until later, when she’d locked her bedroom door behind her, that she dissolved into a fit of weeping. Her need to help courtesans make a better life for themselves was turned around on her when he suggested she become the very thing she reviled. A woman forced to bed a man in order to survive.
    Sweet Arabella saved, and her vile protector’s desire for revenge, and now Eva was on the cusp of losing everything.
    But it was not the lost money she feared, nor homelessness, if she had only herself to worry over. No, it was her mother, her school, and her innocence that she grieved for.
    The monthly stipend was enough to live off but not to cover the piles of debts Mother had incurred. And she would never turn over one of her ladies to the duke or allow her mother to suffer the desperation of poverty, and he well knew it.
    If there was any other way to solve her situation, she’d grasp it as a lifeline. There was nothing.
    He would soon own her body, if not her soul.
     
     
    T here was no more perfect way to distract Eva from her troubles than a visit to her courtesans and to plunge into another lesson. When she returned to the town house in Cheapside late the next day, the young ladies were in the garden having tea. The sun had chosen to make an appearance after nearly a week of clouds and rain, and the five women were having an animated conversation under the shade of the huge oak tree.
    “Miss Eva!” Rose exclaimed as Eva rounded the path and came into view. In spite of their slightly inappropriate low-cut gowns, not an areola was showing, and the bright gowns, covered in feathers and bows, were a burst of color lighting Eva’s dim mood.
    “Come and join us,” Pauline said, reaching for the teapot. “We have just finished learning to mend a hem. Abigail taught us. She has perfect stitches.”
    Abigail smiled, her face pinkening. “I had to learn. Mother could not be bothered, and would not spend the coin necessary to hire a seamstress to make needed repairs.”
    “My mother was too busy keeping that bastard husband of hers out of my