Free The Ice Duchess: Scandalous Regency Widows, Book 2 by Amy Rose Bennett

reputation. And sanity.
    Jonathon’s hand was at her back. “Breathe, Georgie-bean,” he murmured into her ear. “Markham won’t bite you know.” He suddenly chuckled. “Well, maybe he will considering how scrumptiously dressed you are this evening. I swear you are making me blush. And you know I don’t blush easily.”
    “Be quiet, Jonathon,” Georgie hissed under her breath as she attempted to feign a composure she did not feel in the least. She’d regretted Helena’s plan from the moment she had donned this ridiculously risqué gown in her bedchamber at Dudley House. The burgundy satin clung indecently to her curves and barely covered her plumped up breasts; she looked more like a courtesan than a duchess of the realm. “With comments like that, you are not helping.”
    She tore her gaze from Markham’s strangely spellbinding stare and searched the elegantly appointed drawing room for someone else to speak with. To distract her. Phillip and Helena had only invited a relatively small number of guests for tonight’s dinner—perhaps a dozen couples in total—most of whom she knew. Lord and Lady Rothsburgh chatted with Baron Dunwood and his wife, but they were too close to the Latimers and Markham on the other side of the room. However, not too far from where she and Jonathon currently lingered by the white marble fireplace, stood Lord Farley and an attractive, fair-haired woman who looked to be in her early twenties. She so obviously resembled Farley in coloring and features, the pair must be siblings.
    “We need to circulate,” Georgie whispered to Jonathon with an urgency she couldn’t disguise. “Introduce me to Farley’s sister. Now.” Markham was headed in their direction and she didn’t want to speak with him. Not until she absolutely had to—hopefully much later during a round of postprandial piquet. A game she would win. Somehow between now and then she needed to regain some of her much vaunted composure.
    “You can’t elude him forever, you know,” said Jonathon as he took her arm and escorted her toward their intended conversational partners. “He wants you. ”
    “Don’t be vulgar, Jonathon,” she scolded before assuming her polite social smile in preparation for the introductions to Farley and his sister.
    She resisted the strong, almost overwhelming urge to glance back at Markham. The real reason for her shaken equilibrium—if she were brutally honest with herself—was that perhaps, she wanted him too.

    * * *
    I ncomparable .
    That was the word that had immediately sprung into Rafe’s mind the moment he’d laid eyes on the Duchess of Darby this evening. She had, quite literally, taken his breath away. He’d heard via the Latimers that she’d been indisposed with a chill for several days following the ball, but tonight she looked absolutely stunning. Provocative .
    His gut told him she was up to something.
    Now, as he observed her—she sat diagonally opposite him at the vast dining table—there was no doubt in his mind whatsoever. For a woman who professed to eschew rakehells, it seemed decidedly odd that she’d worn such a revealing gown; a gown that would obviously invite male attention—especially from men like him. Yet her manner, toward him at least, had been completely standoffish throughout the entire dinner service .
    It was as though she’d set out to deliberately tease him— You may look at me but don’t address me. You may desire me but I despise you.
    If it was her intention to drive him wild with wanting what he couldn’t have, she was succeeding.
    Indeed, over the last few hours it had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed to prevent his cock from hardening at the sight of her. He thanked God he was seated with a napkin over his lap. With her glossy, spun-sugar brown hair piled into an artful arrangement of curls, and her full, rounded breasts almost spilling from the neckline of her lush red gown, he felt like he was dining in the presence of