Read Almost Perfect for Free Online

forgotten his voice? It was as smooth and deep as dark velvet.
    “Lord Graceton, do you know my nieces?” Philana asked, her voice tight with repressed humor. “The one you’re not looking at is Miss Elizabeth Conningsby. The one on whom your attention is so rudely fixed is Mrs. Marston.”
    From the corner of her eye Cassie caught Lord Ryecroft’s grin. Behind her, Eliza tittered. Cassie couldn’t move, not while she was drowning in Lucien’s gaze.
    The shift in Lucien’s smile said he recognized Philana’s taunt for what it was. He managed a swift glance toward Eliza. “A pleasure, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, then brought his attention back onto Cassie. “As for Mrs. Marston we are already acquainted.”
    Eliza’s quiet gasp suggested an interrogation in Cassie’s future. Lord Ryecroft’s swift sidelong look at his cousin promised the same sort of inquiry for Lucien. Beside Cassie, Philana also shifted in surprise, her gown rustling.
    “So we are, or were,” Cassie replied, giving them all the explanation they craved but couldn’t request. “Lord Graceton and I met during my season, eons ago.”
    “Eons? Does it seem that long to you?” Lucien asked, still watching her as if she were the only woman in the world.
    In that instant Cassie wished she were. It would be heaven to forget for just a moment that she stood at the edge of a horrible precipice, waiting for the gentle tap that would send her tumbling to her doom. She wanted to be the carefree girl of her season, the one who’d caught the eye of a handsome wealthy lord and dared to dream that he might offer marriage.
    She told herself she shouldn’t. Wanting Lucien Hollier was dangerous. She’d learned that well enough six years ago. Not that his disappearance from her side had been unexpected, considering the sort of man her father had been and still was. What she hadn’t expected was that Lucien’s abandonment would be the first in a string of life-changing disappointments that persisted to this day.
    “If not an eon, then a lifetime at least,” Cassie replied with a smile.
    That made Lucien laugh, his amusement tinged with bitterness. Pleasure flared in his cool eyes. “Definitely a lifetime. Let me say that I renew our acquaintance with the greatest of pleasure, Mrs. Marston.”
    Lucien extended his hand. Cassie laid hers into his palm. He brushed his lips across her knuckles. Her lacy gloves were no barrier. Her senses stirred sharply, filling with longing, the wicked, wonderful and totally inappropriate longing to feel his mouth on hers and his arms around her. However wrongly, however utterly impossible, Cassie still desired Lucien Hollier with all her being.
    As Lucien straightened Cassie saw the mate to her attraction reflected in his eyes. “If you aren’t otherwise occupied would you consider joining me for the next dance?”
    She hesitated. So far tonight she’d been out on the floor twice, only to find that her impatience to get to the card room left her incapable of enjoying the activity. Since then she’d refused all offers under the pretense of being Eliza’s chaperone, something that had outraged Philana.
    Across the room the musicians tuned their instruments, preparing to begin their next set. Cassie knew the next piece was a waltz. It was a dance she loved, cherishing it above the usual jigs and promenades for the beauty of its movement.
    Still, she commanded herself to refuse. Upstanding widows didn’t participate in waltzes, and Cassie needed everyone here to see her as an upstanding widow.
    Nor did young women who hadn’t yet been presented to society.
    Cassie’s refusal stalled on her tongue. Eliza wasn’t going to be presented to society and Cassie wasn’t an upstanding widow. She was a murderess who found Lucien’s presence here and his renewed interest in her too disorienting, unnerving and incredibly attractive to resist. To not have his arm around her and their bodies close was beyond bearing.
    “Don’t