Free The Love List by Deb Marlowe Page A

incredulous eyebrows, they would look just like hers, lifted high and beautifully curved.  “Did you think that I’d come carrying tales like a schoolgirl, your Grace?  That I laid your brother’s sins out before you so that you could wave a ducal hand, smack your brother’s knuckles and make my troubles disappear?”
    That’s exactly what he’d thought.  Though he wouldn’t for the life of him admit it now.  “Did you come only to lay charges of my broken word at my feet, perhaps?”
    “Partly, not only.”
    “Why then?” he asked with a sigh.
    “I came because I refuse to be used as a weapon.  Because your brother’s actions are harming my friends.  Because what he has done is likely to kill my dreams.”
    He made the mistake of raising his own eyebrows in surprise.  She immediately arched in her chair, as indignant as the kitchen cat when you rubbed its fur the wrong way.
    “Do you object, your Grace, to me having plans for my life?  Are you like the rest of society, who believes that I—having lost their good graces—might as well lie down in a ditch?”
    He shook his head.
    “Good.  Because I want the chance to tell your brother just what he’s done.  I want him to look in the face of at least one of the innocent women whose life he’s trying to ruin.  And I want to ask him to reconsider.”
    “I think that is exactly what you should do.”  Not that he held out any hope of Tru going along with her.  Aldmere knew his brother—and this was not in his usual style at all.  It must be a damned powerful hold Marstoke possessed, to force his participation in something like this List. 
    Yet it was damned courageous of Miss Wilmott to try.  And damned foolish, likely.  “But, again, it begs the question, why are you here , Miss Wilmott?”
    She smiled.  “Because it is a simple matter to find you, your Grace.  One can ask anyone in the street where the Duke of Aldmere might be found.  Your brother, on the other hand, is not so easily located.”
    A discreet knock sounded on the door, and it swung open before he could respond.  “Your Grace.”  Billings was having a difficult afternoon and it showed in his strained expression.  “You have another visitor.  And I’m afraid he insists on being seen right away.”
    The other two turned as a familiar figure, gnarled and as tough as boot leather, followed on the butler’s heels.  Aldmere stood.  Miss Wilmott’s last words echoed in his head as foreboding settled in his gut.  “Gorman.  What is it?”
    His brother’s servant paused just inside the doorway.  “It’s Lord Truitt, sir.  I’m afraid he’s gone missing.”
     
     
     

Four
     
    “Bath will be an excellent trial run,” my father told me.  A practical and somewhat cynical man, he had waited in vain for a son.  What he got was me—merely a girl, but with beauty, at least.  He saw me well-educated, well-mannered and well-dressed—and he meant to get a return on his investment.  A titled husband would be best, but connections with another wealthy family would be acceptable as well.  So at sixteen I was off to Bath, to polish my manners and make what useful connections I could . . .
from the journal of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright.
     
     
    “Missing?” Aldmere barked.  He jumped to his feet again.  “For how long?”
    “Two nights and as many days.”  Gorman hovered at the far end of the room.  “This is the start of the third full day.”
    The answer pulled him up short at the corner of his desk.  “That’s all?”  He frowned at the servant.  “Good God, man.  Tru’s wallowed longer than that in the bed of a new mistress.”
    The man’s head bobbed in agreement.  “I do know it, sir.  And normally I wouldn’t a worried, or come to you at all.  It’s just that in these past months Lord Truitt hasn’t had a spare moment to spend pursuing a regular, uh, lady.  And on top of that, he’s been a bit nervous of late.”
    Aldmere