Read For the Earl's Pleasure for Free Online Page B

it the day after the Malcolm’s fete and nothing out of the ordinary. “Mr. Farnswourth, that would be superb.”
    “Most excellent. I was just saying to Father the other day, Father, don’t you think we should—”
    Rainewood circled her. “Talk to me , Smart,” the commanding, sensual voice said against her ear. “I know the look in a woman’s eye when she has noticed me, I know the look in your eye when you’ve seen me, and you possessed just such a gaze.”
    She shivered again, but not from a touch this time. She sneaked a quick look to her right, and her eyes met shocked dark golden brown.
    “You can see me. And you can hear me.” His voice darkened and intensified. Repeated tingles ran through her as he tried to connect his hand to her body. “What madness is this? What have you wrought against me? Why can’t I touch you? Why can’t I touch anyone?”
    Unable to stand the stirrings of panic in his voice, she glanced away, her eyes moving toward the couple copulating in the corner. Her color automatically rose.
    “I did nothing,” she blurted, flustered. “And it’s not possible. The laws prohibit it.”
    “That is exactly what I said!” She jolted to see Mr. Farnswourth nodding eagerly at her response. Sheer dumb luck had her answer to Rainewood in agreement with whatever Mr. Farnswourth had said.
    Luckily her mother was chatting with another lady in their carved-out space and was not paying attention. If she had been, her mother would know her infirmity was back. Not that it had ever disappeared, no matter what Abigail had pleaded and assured them of. Her mother would know. She’d call Dr. Myers to sort her out again.
    Everything in Abigail shuddered, and she tried to block Rainewood from view.
    “It isn’t against the law to touch someone,” he said. “And no one else can see me. I’m invisible. Why can you see me?”
    At any other time she might have responded with something along the lines of how he deserved to be invisible for once, but she was too numb. First, that he was dead. Secondly, that he even remembered her postmortem. Spirits almost never took notice of anyone who didn’t directly affect their environment.
    Unless…unless he was like…Lightning ran down her spine and she smothered the thought. Only two spirits had reacted similarly to her and both situations had ended badly.
    She tried to concentrate on Mr. Farnswourth, a proper beau, one who would make her mother proud. A man with whom she could have a nice, unfettered life, free from the threats of being sent away, and freed from desires that could never be.
    “Why don’t the counselors see it, do you suppose?” Mr. Farnswourth asked, completely oblivious to her distress.
    “Tell me why I can’t touch you or anything else, Smart. Answer me.” A ghostly hand traveled over the bare flesh of her arm, making every hair stand at attention. “Why are you the only one who can see and hear me?” Rainewood demanded.
    If there was one thing she knew about Valerian Danforth, now Lord Rainewood, it seemed even in death, he would stubbornly try to beat her down until she admitted defeat. She tried to answer him while not cluing Mr. Farnswourth into the fact that she was two pence shy of a full pound. “It—it is a consequence of living, I’m afraid. That we are made to see that which is for mortal eyes alone. And those outside of the system often do not have the same advantages.”
    “Living? What the devil do you mean?” Rainewood’s voice lowered and took on a much deadlier tone.
    “The judicial system is in place for a reason, Miss Smart,” Mr. Farnswourth said cautiously, as if she were sane and answering him instead of speaking to a dead man at their side.
    “Yes, but that hardly helps when one dies.” She looked directly at Rainewood.
    His face froze. “Dead? I’m not dead. This is just a bizarre dream.”
    “That is quite morbid, Miss Smart,” Mr. Farnswourth said, sounding slightly unnerved. “But I take