Free Lady Beauchamp's Proposal by Secret Cravings Publishing Page A

when she was well and looking her best.
    If he was honest with himself, he should
also acknowledge that it was more than her looks that attracted
him, little that he knew of her. He sensed spirit and a keen
intelligence…and honor. Her adherence to the convention of wearing
the staid garments associated with deep mourning, as well as her
wedding ring, suggested she wished to pay due respect to her
husband’s memory. She possessed qualities he found both admirable
and…refreshing.
    This morning he’d also learned that she
obviously valued her virtue, given her shocked reaction at finding
him in her bed. But then, he had also sensed a reluctant attraction
to him if her shy sideways glances and her blushes were anything to
go by. Perhaps she wasn’t completely immune to him.
    He sighed heavily. Not that it mattered. He
really shouldn’t be harboring any sort of interest in the woman,
sexual or otherwise. Corrupting chaste widows was not his usual
style. His mouth twisted into a mirthless smile as he leant his
head back against the headrest of the chair. Tumbling ready and
willing courtesans was more to his taste. But even though he was a
hardened reprobate to the very core, his own transgressions paled
into insignificance when he compared them to the sins of his
wife.
    Isabelle.
    He took another slug of whisky, trying to
deaden the old pain. It had faded with time but invariably came
back at unexpected moments like this, to stab him anew. Ironic that
the pain of betrayal still hurt him more than the battle
wounds—both physical and emotional—that he’d sustained at Waterloo.
And to his shame, even the actual death of the woman herself.
    But then, how could he be expected to mourn
the death of a woman—a woman he had once loved beyond all
reason—when she had turned out to be utterly faithless? When, with
malice of forethought, she had brazenly tried to pass another man’s
bastard off as his own child within the first year of their
marriage?
    Of course, when he was newly wedded and in
the first mad throes of love, he’d never envisaged that things
would turn out so disastrously.
    Lady Isabelle March had been as dazzling as
any of the stars in heaven’s firmament when he’d first met her
during her second Season in London six years ago. Black-haired and
gentian eyed, she’d had a sparkling wit and beauty beyond compare.
She was always dressed in the height of fashion, rode like an
Amazon through Hyde Park, and her dance card was always full. She
also had an impeccable lineage—her father, the Earl of Granthorpe,
was extremely well off, and her maternal grandfather was a Duke.
She seemed to be a diamond of the first water. And after he’d first
seen her, he’d been determined to win her.
    Who’d have thought that she’d be as wild as
a gypsy and completely lacking in principles?
    He’d heard the whispered warnings; that
despite her apparent suitability as a prospective partner for any
male in the upper echelons of society, she was also rumored to be
fickle with her attentions. Hence the lack of an engagement by the
end of her debut Season.
    Stupidly, blindly, he’d ignored all the
speculation and gossip; he hadn’t cared. The worldly, rakish,
Marquess of Rothsburgh had been well and truly besotted by the
incomparable Lady Isabelle. But he’d been nothing more than
Isabelle’s cuckold.
    It had taken him a long time to crawl out of
the black void of despair and disillusionment that Isabelle had
flung him into. He’d learned to exist as man who was really only
half-alive and up until three days ago he had been relatively
content to carry on that way. But now…perhaps Mrs. Beth Eliott had
revived his long dead heart.
    And he didn’t like it one little bit.
    He finished his whisky, then paced over to
the bay windows again to watch the sun slowly ascend through
scattered shreds of cloud over the perpetually cold, dark sea. The
question was, what was Beth going to do now? That she needed to
stay at Eilean Tor