Free Virtue and Vice by Kimberly Brody Page A

must dress. ‘Tis my cousin!”
    A sound of frustration escaped him, but he leapt from her, grabbing her hand and lifting her to her feet. As she yanked her breeches up to her waist and fastened them, Julian snatched her white shirt from the ground and brought it over her head. She slid her arms into the sleeves. It settled around her waist just as Belinda came into view, riding her dappled mare. 
    Bel drew the horse to a halt upon spotting them, her eyes widening in surprise and horror. But soon enough, she recovered her power of speech.
    “Izzy Beaumont, what do you think you’re doing?”

Chapter 6
     
    Ram stiffened. Beaumont? The new arrival advanced on them, and Izzy widened the gap between herself and him. As if even fully clothed, there was any doubt as to what they’d been doing, with her hair in disarray and a blanket laid on the ground.
    She gave him a tremulous smile, whispering, “I must go, I’m so sorry.” He managed a curt nod, unable to speak over the tumultuous thoughts churning in his mind.
    “Meet me on the morrow?” She asked under her breath, mirroring his words of the night before.
    He nodded again and she sprinted from his side, leading the girl on the horse away from him. As they disappeared from sight he clenched his fists at his side.
    Beaumont!
    Izzy…most certainly was a nickname for Isabelle. Why hadn’t he realized that before? Because in his own mind he’d referred to his betrothed only as the Beaumont girl, never by her actual name. His mystery maiden was Isabelle Beaumont, his betrothed! Hadn’t he known from her speech and her mannerisms she was no peasant? How could he have not made the connection earlier?
    Because he’d been thinking with his cock, instead of his brain.
    Izzy was Isabelle Beaumont; the woman he already adored was to become his wife in only a matter of weeks .
    His heart leapt with the knowledge she was the one. His father was right, the rumors all true. She was a great beauty. Someday she’d be a magnificent Countess.
    And then the malicious truth came hard on the heels of euphoria. His betrothed was gallivanting about the countryside, dressing like a peasant and in those bloody breeches, intending to bed a perfect stranger, with nary a thought to the wedding contract she’d signed. She had no idea he was Ramsay Maitland, not Julian James. Yet she’d been moments away from giving her body to a virtual stranger.
    Cold rage washed over him with such force he began to shake. She meant to cuckold him even before they were wed! She’d played him for a fool!
    The nearest solid object to him was a stout tree, and he smashed his fist against it, reveling in the pain the blow brought. He should have known something like this would happen, for weren’t most highborn women hussies to their core, just like his mother?
    And now he was betrothed to one no different than his dam. Nay, he would not end up like his father, pretending ignorance as his wife’s belly grew round with the fruit planted by another man’s seed. And if his mother and the child had survived the birth, his father would have claimed the child as his own, rather than risk scandal and dishonor. Ram would be damned before he allowed that to happen!
    ‘Twas the real reason behind his father’s distaste for the royal court and the lifestyle that accompanied it. The lax morals at St. James’s had been his wife’s downfall. The Earl had never been a true Parliamentarian or Puritan; he’d only been disgusted by the immorality and excess amongst the court of the first King Charles. Ram was no Puritan; he liked immorality and excess as much as the next man, often he engaged in both with the next man’s wife; but his own wife would be pure and demure. If that made him a hypocrite, it was too bloody bad.
    Isabelle Beaumont wasn’t pure or demure. She was a slut. Marriage to her was impossible now. He had the proof he’d come for, even if he’d found it in a rather unexpected manner. Now he had the