Read Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman for Free Online

whom he had merely held and comforted through the night. Not a woman who had fallen in love with him, knowing that she would never possess his heart.
    She couldn’t help but be disappointed that a night that had changed her forever had apparently meant nothing at all to him. He’d been so solicitous, so kind, so tender that long-ago night. What a fool she was to think he’d held her in any sort of special regard. No other man ever had. And Stephen Lyons was far above every other man in existence. Handsome, charming, devoted to women. Not a single nurse had been immune to his charms.
    Mercy had been no exception.
    She wanted to be angry that she’d been no more than a momentary diversion, but she was also acutely aware that his not remembering the details of their association could work to her advantage. And why not make the most of it? From the moment John had come into her life, she’d been more duplicitous than she’d ever thought herself capable of being. Her love of Stephen Lyons and subsequently his son had ruined her reputation, had ensured that no other man would have her.
    She had so much to gain, and Major Lyons had very little to lose. She’d already proven herself an excellent mother. She would excel at being a wife. Marriage would ensure that John remained in her life and she in his.
    Was she truly considering moving forward with this farce?
    And what if he did remember? He would loathe her. Dare she risk it?
    Mercy had never declared to anyone that she had brought John into the world. That honor had been granted another. But the woman who had birthed him had turned away from him. Had abandoned him because his presence was a threat to the prestigious life she’d always envisioned for herself. So Mercy had sheltered him and found a wet nurse to provide the nourishment she could not. He’d been sickly in the beginning, and Mercy had tended to him with an obsessive need to ensure he lived. She’d been so dreadfully weary of watching men die. She’d refused to allow Death to snatch him away. She’d fought vigilantly until her own health suffered.
    But during those difficult and frightening weeks, she’d come to love John as though she had given birth to him. She’d become his mother in every sense of the word. She’d made no plans for his future or hers. She’d simply taken each day as it came.
    During her time in the Crimea she’d learned that not even the next moment was guaranteed. Then she’d seen Major Lyons’s name on the list of the dead, and she’d known that she had to bring John to the duchess. He was all that remained of her son.
    But fear that John, whom she could not love more if she had actually birthed him, would be taken from her had caused her to declare herself his mother. She’d known shame and humiliation would accompany her declaration, but they were nothing compared with the heartbreak she would endure if she were not allowed to be part of his life. She could not explain the motherly instincts that rampaged through her. But to lose him would be to break her heart.
    She’d known a frisson of fear when she’d learned Major Lyons was alive—because surely he would know that she could not possibly be John’s mother. In spite of the night she’d spent with Major Lyons.
    But it seemed he did not remember their night together. That he did not truly remember her. Did he not remember her because she was forgettable? Had there been so many women that he had confused her with one he’d bedded?
    She should ask him: Who do you think I am? What do you think happened between us? But what would she gain beyond further mortification? What did she risk losing?
    John. The only person who mattered in her life, who gave it purpose.
    She could not reveal the truth, could not risk losing him. Everything within her shouted that she could not continue on this course. But her heart would not listen. She would compromise. She would not lie. But neither would she reveal the entire truth.
    “It was