Free Seducing the Single Lady by Maya Rodale

Everything was just so: the pot of steaming hot tea with a bowl of sugar lumps. A china plate with toast and buttery scrambled eggs. Highly polished silverware. Freshly ironed newspapers just to the left of her plate.
    Everything was just as she liked it. But she thought longingly of ale and meat pies and mismatched pewter. She missed Frannie’s smile. She missed having broken at lea st a dozen rules and having enjoyed a bunch of adventures before breakfast.
    Then she turned to the gossip columns, immediately, as one does. She shrieked when she saw her name. And Damien’s name.
    Susannah rang for a footman.
    “Quickly, you must go and recall the note I sent to Lord Bedford and deliver him a message.”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    “Tell him I said to hell with him!”
     
    ******
     
    Damien woke to a strange combination of feelings. He recognized the slight ache in his muscles and the slight ache in his head indicating that he had slept in, likely due to overexertions the previous day or night. But he did not feel the aftereffects of alcohol: the pounding head, fuzzy mouth and odd sensation of his insides having been pickled from so much wine and whiskey. No, he felt fine—along with the faint satisfaction of having had a rollicking good time. Usually, he had not experienced one without the other.
    This bode d well for his determination to be good and married. He could still enjoy himself. He could still have adventures.
    He took a moment to recollect the source of yesterday’ s escapades.
    Susannah, in breeches that clung to her shapely legs an d bum the way a drowning man would hold tight to anything that might keep him afloat.
    Susannah’s expression of wild, utter delight to be finally galloping while riding astride.
    And then, at the tavern. Frannie. The kiss.
    And then, after the tavern. Their kiss. They had made love. For all of his experience with bedding women, it had never been like that: passionate and playful, intense and delightful, teasing and utterly serious. The pleasure—soul deep, overwhelming, breathtaking, heart-stopping pleasure.
    It had been a risk, encouraging her to break all those rules. But it was lik e she’d been awakened by it. He, too. They could start anew. He would never shut her out. Not again.
    Damien rolled over in his bed, ready for more. She was not there. This was a grievous crime. He would go to her and propose again. But first—a bath, a shave, breakfast, and a quick glance at the day’s newspapers.
    He flipped past the parliamentary news and intelligence from the continent and went straight to the gossip columns. He saw his name, linked with Susannah’s and began to swear.
     

Chapter 6: Irreplaceable
     
    After his lengthy grand tour full of all sorts of reckless and debauched behavior, the new Viscount Bedford has returned home intent upon a life to honor the wishes of his late father—including upstanding behavior and finally marrying heiress Miss Susannah Grey, to whom he’s been betrothed to since birth (and whom he once called a scrappy brat).
    He must have assumed she was still a scrappy brat—news of her beautiful transformation having not reached his drunken self whilst on the continent—otherwise he wouldn’t have dreamed of wagering with Lord Watson that he’d be married to her within the week. And for the paltry sum of fifty pounds, too.
    One can only hope she refuses him on principle. Although, this author does love a happy ending and a love match. I should hope to read of their marriage—but not until next week.
    --Fashionable Intelligence by A Lady of Distinction
    The London Weekly
     
    In Susannah’s drawing room, Damien paced nervously and pushed his fingers through his hair in frustration as he waited to learn if Susannah was “at home” to callers. More specifically, at home to him.
    Upon reading the disastrous news reported by A Lady of Distinction , he knew his immediate attendance upon the queen of pleasure (or presumably, today, the queen of