Free Nicole Jordan by The Prince of Pleasure Page A

She had spent years trying to mend her shattered heart, and he could so easily break it again.
    She was startled out of her dark reverie by her friend’s greeting.
    “Julienne,
mon amie, bonjour,
” Solange said in her heavy accent. “I am so pleased you have come. I feared you might have too many other matters demanding your time.”
    “You know I try never to miss your Tuesday salons,” Julienne returned as they pressed cheeks.
    Solange held her away, appraising her with a keen eye. “You look ravishing as always.”
    She didn’t protest the lie, but returned the compliment. Madame Brogard was not considered a great beauty; her allure owed more to artifice and the skilled application of cosmetics. But with her tall, elegant figure and silvery blond hair, she possessed undeniable charisma that would always catch the eye.
    “I daresay I am not the only one who will be pleased to see you,” Solange added lightly. She glanced toward a far corner where a tall, fair-haired nobleman stood conversing with several ladies. “Lord Wolverton has been asking for you.”
    Julienne’s smile froze on her lips. Good God,
Dare
.
    She felt her heartbeat suddenly race in panic, even before his eyes connected with hers.
    He sketched her a brief bow in acknowledgement. Then his gaze made a slow, intimate sweep of her body, traveling the length of her bronze silk gown and up again to linger on her breasts.
    Flustered by his brazen scrutiny, Julienne cast him a quelling look. His lazy smile leapt back across the room.
    Vexed, she turned a cool shoulder to him, but it was far more difficult to dismiss Dare from her awareness, or to deny the effect his unexpected presence had on her. Why did she have this sudden feeling that her life had begun again?
    “What the devil is he doing here?” she demanded of her hostess before she considered the wisdom of curbing her tongue.
    “He persuaded me to invite him. He had been told that you often attended my functions and wished for a chance to speak to you alone. He claims that you have been avoiding him,
mon amie
.”
    Julienne pressed her lips together without responding.
    “I heard of the wager he made to win you. Are you not flattered?”
    “Hardly. I find it distasteful to be made the public target of his lust and the object of his amusement. Lord Wolverton is the consummate pleasure seeker, a bored nobleman in search of diversion. He deliberately created a sensation with his antics in the theater the other evening for his own sport.”
    “Pooh, that was nothing. His pranks are legend,
vraiment
. Did you know that he once got Lord Lambton abysmally cup shot and stole his clothes, then had him transported to Hyde Park during the night, bed and all? Lambton caught a chill walking home with only a bedsheet to cover himself.”
    “No, I hadn’t heard that
on-dit
,” Julienne said dryly.
    “And I have it on good authority that he abducted his good friend’s
chère amie
to coerce Baron Sinclair into declaring his love. Lord Sin happily wed his lady afterward, but not before he called Wolverton out for the insult.”
    She couldn’t deny that Dare would stoop to nearly any maneuver to get his own way. Seven years ago he had bought her entire shop’s stock of hats simply so she would have the time to accompany him on a carriage ride and allow him to command her complete attention, she remembered. But she didn’t intend to tell Solange of her past history with Dare.
    Few people knew of their former betrothal, or even of their affair. During his courtship, Dare had respected her desire to keep their relationship as private as possible and had gone to great lengths to shield her from gossip. And his grandfather hadn’t wanted to advertise Dare’s intentions to wed a foreign shopkeeper who was so far beneath him.
    Fortunately, her friend was too busy singing Dare’s praises to ask any probing questions. “I find him delightful and audaciously charming, even if he is an
anglais
and