Read Minor Indiscretions for Free Online

never have time for it, more's the pity. I'd be pleased if you'd come choose what you could make use of, to make up for the delay and all."
    Mrs. Barstow started Nanny up the stairs, nodding back at Melody toward the first door on the right. "Ten minutes, miss," she murmured. "And it's against my better judgment. But he's looking as harmless as a babe, so I suppose that's fair."
    Melody hesitated outside the door. She really should not do this. Her reputation, her future—his practiced charm. She tapped lightly.
    He was sitting, stiffly it seemed to her, in a high-backed chair. He was wearing a bright paisley dressing gown with a black velvet collar and gray pantaloons. The colors of the robe, which was open enough for her to see wide swatches of bandages across his chest, were as nothing compared to the colors of his face.
    "Oh my," she said, going closer. "You shouldn't be up."
    "And you shouldn't be here."
    My word, Corey thought, standing cautiously. He must have taken a harder hit to the brainbox than he thought. Yesterday, with her hair down and her toes bare, his angel was a most appealing little baggage, and he had wanted—needed—just one more look at her dewy innocence to remind him that the world wasn't all hardened cynics. Today she was nothing more than a pretty schoolroom chit, all prunes and prisms, not a hair out of place, bundled sensibly against the cold. By all that was holy, even he had more conscience than to make mice feet of her good name, whatever it was. "You had better leave."
    Of course she shouldn't be here. Any peagoose knew that. But hadn't he asked for her and arranged the whole elaborate scheme so she could come? Obviously, he had changed his mind. So had Miss Ashton. Instead of wishing him Godspeed and hoping that by some miracle this nonesuch would ask for her direction, she would stand tall—she had her shoes on today—and make polite inquiries as to his health, then return his largesse. A lady never let a strange man pay her way. She pulled at the strings of her reticule—the weight of the thing was making it devilish hard to undo—and raised her proud chin.
    "What the deuce is that thing around your neck?"
    Drat Nanny anyway! She couldn't admit the muffler was her own cross to bear, so Melody answered, "It's all the thing, don't you know, my lord." But she showed her adorable dimples, and a lot of the viscount's good resolutions melted.
    He raised the one moveable eyebrow. "Perhaps in Shavbrodia, my girl, but in London ladies don't pay attention to the weather. They are wearing the flimsiest of gowns, with the least underpinnings. Some are even dampening their skirts."
    Her green eyes opened wide. "They are? Whatever for?"
    He grinned. "Child, you have so much to learn. I only wish I… No, you had better leave."
    "I am not in leading strings, Lord Corey. About your paying my shot at the inn, I do know that's not the thing." She couldn't get the blasted strings unknotted, and the wretched man was laughing at her! She stamped her foot in frustration.
    He reached for the bag to help her, and exclaimed, "My God, what's in here? The thing weighs a ton."
    She snatched it back, not about to reveal the reticule's contents, but he kept her hand in his, to her confusion. "If you must know, it's a going-away present from my schoolmistress."
    "A fine instructor she must be, not teaching her young ladies about the danger of rakes." He was teasing her purposefully, noting her stress on the "going-away" part to distance herself from the schoolroom. He also noticed how the color came and went in her peach-blushed cheeks.
    "School taught me everything I need to know, thank you."
    "Everything,
mon ange
?" With that Corey drew her forward and brushed his other hand across her cheek and behind her head. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, tenderly enough for his bruised lips, thoroughly enough to leave Melody dazed.
    Now why the bloody hell had he done that? Corey asked himself. Most likely it