Free A Terrible Beauty (Season of the Furies Book 1) by Stephanie Patterson Page A

light in his brother’s face suddenly triggered a warning. Damn, Michael thought, choose any girl but her. She’ll run you into the pauper’s house if she’ll even have you at all. An idea sprouted in his brain. It was time his brother expanded his knowledge of feminine mysteries and became familiar with the demimonde – intimately. “Little brother, what if you and I attend the Deering's picnic and then I take you out for an evening you won’t soon forget.”
    Drew flushed and looked away. “I don’t think you and I have the same tastes in entertainment.” Michael could hear his mother’s disapproving tone in his brother’s voice.
    “Perhaps we should,” he said drily.
    “ Society has certain expectations of gentlemen,” Drew said quietly. “I choose to live up to them, not ignore them.”
    So his mother had succeeded in driving a wedge between the two brothers, had she? Their father had begun the chasm when he’d first exiled Michael from the family. He tamped down the familiar pain of his father’s anger and ultimate rejection . “You’re more bother than you’re worth boy. You’re lazy, irresponsible and worse yet, plain damned immoral. I know what to do with you – by God, I do! I’m sending you where your antics won’t heap any more embarrassment on this family. You’ll either amount to something, or not, as you choose, but at least we won’t have to deal with you any longer. ” He’d been thrown out of his family at twenty, deemed unworthy because he’d taken a society matron up on her offer to share her bed and had gotten caught by her irate husband – her irate duke of a husband.
    “Drew,” Michael began evenly, “you are seventeen, a young man. It’s high time you learned how to get on in life outside of a ballroom. All men have their youthful exploits, even our brother Henry, the much vaunted saint of Stowebridge Abbey himself, gamed and wenched before he married. Who do you think took me to Madame Cecile’s my first time? It sure as hell wasn’t our father. Come on, Drew. Live a little.” Drew turned to look at him and Michael could see he was tempted. He grinned in encouragement. “Cecile’s girls are beautiful, all lace and silken skin. They smell like flowers and they are very, very creative. They don’t tease a man like some virginal ballroom chit.” The curious light in Drew’s eyes suddenly died. His shoulders hunched and he appeared to fold in on himself. Michael frowned. “What is it, Drew? What’s got you so knotted up inside?” he asked quietly.
    Drew’s face flushed and he shrugged. “Nothing. I’m just not interested, that’s all. Besides, why would Cecile’s girls be interested in me? I can’t afford them.”
    Michael chuckled. “Neither could I at your age, but like you, I had a big brother who could.” He clapped Drew on the shoulder and watched as an embarrassed smile turned up the corners of his brother’s mouth. As quickly as that smile came, it left.
    “I appreciate the offer, Michael, but I think I’d rather stay in tonight.”
    Michael sighed. “It’s that Winston girl, isn’t it?”
    Drew stiffened at Michael’s question and then, as if all the air had left his body, his shoulders drooped. “I love her, Michael. I know you thinks it’s impossible that she’d ever have me – gad, it’s not as if I deserve her either. Araby is so full of life, so beautiful. She’s an angel.” Michael snorted and Drew glared at him. “You see, this is exactly why I don’t want to talk to you about her. You’ll never understand her – her passion, her spirit,” he dropped his voice, “her vulnerability.”
    And there it was, the two sides of Araby Winston – the heartless temptress and the waif, both equally captivating. Michael strode across the room barely resisting the impulse to shake some sense into his brother. “Damn it, Drew there are beautiful women all over the world, women who welcome a man, not tear up his heart for fun. Araby