Free A Duke's Wicked Kiss (Entangled Select) by Kathleen Bittner Roth

picture of the two of them wrapped in an embrace dropped into his mind like heavy stones in a pond. Anger whipped through him. Ravi Maurya. Sooner or later, he’d catch the son of a bitch at something. What the hell was he up to with Suri?
    John leaned back against the wall beside Shahira, folded his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes. He had broken one of his own cardinal rules—he’d shown his temper. What had got into him? Surely, he could manage this situation with a bit of diplomacy.
    His unbridled fury at hearing her agree to attend the wedding as a spy was unlike him. But then again, perhaps it was more like him than he cared to think. Hadn’t he been carrying a silent rage these past two years while he was ferreting out his brother’s killer? And before that, the old anger, layered deeper, much deeper than the fury at his brother’s murderer. It was the worst kind of wrath—aimed at himself. He alone was responsible for Laura’s death, and that of his unborn daughter. He’d failed to protect them when he had insisted that Laura remain in Delhi.
    Well, he’d not fail Suri.
    Fail her? Why should he carry any emotion regarding her irrational decision beyond pragmatic concern? Oh, hell, he knew better. The moment he’d set eyes on her again, she’d crawled under his skin as if the wild imaginings of his youth had been real. The idea piled new annoyance onto the old—he wasn’t in any position to contemplate an affair.
    No longer the immature second son without any purpose, he was now a peer of the realm with utmost responsibilities. He was also a spymaster, one of the best in the Queen’s Service, but when his heart was engaged, he proved the fool. He couldn’t afford any distractions on this, his last assignment.
    Soon, he’d retire to England and fulfill his duties as duke. He’d see to a proper wife then, one of impeccable character and lineage befitting his station. And someone safe—a woman incapable of breaching the fortress of his carefully erected exterior. As for his heart, well, he’d bound that in chains long ago.
    A grim reminder of his affair with Lady Elizabeth Houghton filled him with dour recollection. The widow had branded him with her heady lovemaking and her tender ministrations had made him more the man. But without provocation, she’d tossed him over, called him a ne’er-do-well second son and told him the only thing she’d ever felt for him was a primal urge to mate with a well-muscled and beautiful youth. A week later, she’d married a wealthy earl twenty years her senior.
    His life had turned at that point. Sick of being called an ineffectual idler because of his social rank, especially from his drunken father, he threw himself into his work in the Service with fierce dedication. Unexpectedly, he’d unearthed a diamond in the rough—his keen sense for business and a master spy. In the end, he should’ve thanked Lady Elizabeth. He’d demonstrated to himself and the world he was no man to be labeled aimless. Next, he would prove himself to be as fine a duke as he was a spy and businessman.
    He scrubbed his hand through his hair and lifted his shoulders from the wall. He ought to walk a while, cool his heels. He yanked the door open and stepped out. Scanning the verdant lawns sloping down to the trees and meandering pathways, his eye caught a flash of color. By the deuces! There sat Suri on a bench, under the shade of a peepul tree not a hundred yards away, a vision in pink. His heart kicked up a notch. Frustration flowed out of him like water through a sieve.
    Bold peacocks, no longer intimidated by a predator, strutted in front of Suri, their elegant necks and heads glistening like sapphires, their colorful topknots bobbing like loose crowns. While some swept the grass with long, feathered trains, others danced about with their upper tail coverts held in a fan arcing wide as the corridor behind him. A hundred eyes dotting the feathers gazed hypnotically at Suri.