Read Dear Stranger for Free Online Page A

spark that was so much a part of Sophie. No, he refused to feel guilty.
    He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, staring at the twisting, flickering flames that seemed to mirror his inner turmoil. His cock hardened as his thoughts turned to his encounter with Sophie in the storage room. Barely resisting the urge to throw his now-empty glass into the fireplace, he placed it, instead, on a side table and reached down to unbutton the fall of his breeches. He stopped, his frustration mounting, when there was a knock on his study door.
    “I am sorry to interrupt, my lord,” his butler said when Richard bade him enter, “but there is a young woman here who insists on seeing you. I tried to explain—”
    Richard was on his feet in a flash. “Where is she?”
    If his butler was surprised, he didn’t show it. “In the drawing room, my lord.”
    He told himself it couldn’t possibly be Sophie. She wouldn’t come here on her own at this late hour. Hell, given her last words to him he was beginning to think he’d never make love to her, but he couldn’t stop the anticipation that surged through his veins. Images filled his mind—Sophie laid bare beneath him as he drove into her again and again, begging him for more as he showed her all the ways he would make her his.
    He was already rock hard when he entered the drawing room and found a woman in a dark cloak standing at the window. Her back was to him, but she turned at his entrance and raised her hands to draw back the hood.
    “Sophie.”
    With her dark hair and dark cloak, she looked even paler than usual, almost delicate, and for a moment he wondered if he was imagining her. There could only be one reason why she was there. He closed the door behind him and crossed the room to take her into his arms, but she stopped him with a hand to his chest. She licked her lips, drawing his eyes to her mouth, and he barely resisted the urge to groan.
    “Before we…” She took a deep breath before continuing and, powerless to stop them, his eyes moved even lower, to the rise of her breasts hidden beneath her cloak. “I would like there to be complete honesty between us.”
    She’d surprised him.
    “I haven’t lied to you,” he said.
    “No, you haven’t, but you haven’t been completely truthful, either. I need to know what happened to Henry. What did you do to make him leave town so quickly?”
    Her question sparked his anger. He couldn’t believe she was still fixated on his brother.
    “Contrary to what you wish to believe, I didn’t force Henry to leave London. He made that decision on his own.”
    She shook her head. “Something must have happened between the two of you. I know he intended to propose to me. He told me so himself before—”
    “Before I arrived and ruined both your lives?” He turned away from her, angry, frustrated and surprised at the bitterness in his tone.
    “I don’t think that.”
    He had to tell her everything or she would never let the matter drop. He’d told himself he wanted to spare her from feeling any embarrassment at his brother’s abandonment, but the truth was he’d been afraid she’d be hurt when she learnt the truth. He didn’t want to analyse why it would bother him so much, but he wasn’t sure he could deal with discovering that Sophie truly cared for his brother. He turned to face her again and somehow he kept his tone even.
    “The only thing I can be accused of doing is providing Henry with an independent income and allowing him to make his own choice. I gave him an estate that wasn’t tied to the earldom. Once he no longer needed your fortune, he chose to go back to another woman, whom he claims to love.”
    He saw her surprise before she looked away from him.
    “Sophie—” he started.
    She laughed then, a small, self-deprecating sound. “I feel so silly. I don’t know why I was so worried about him. I knew his primary interest in me lay with my inheritance, but it is still lowering to learn he didn’t care for