Read The Affair (Entangled Scandalous) for Free Online Page B

was finished, the men and women didn’t separate but went back to the drawing room together.
    They all talked late into the night, but the time passed astonishingly quickly. Eventually the others began to depart, but Elizabeth lingered, waiting for the room to empty.
    After bidding farewell to the last guest, Cale came to stand beside her. She was sitting in a claw-footed armchair by the fireplace, staring into the sparking depths of the embers.
    “Did you enjoy yourself?”
    “I did,” she said, broken out of her thoughts. “More than I suspected I would, actually.” She smiled up at him. “Thank you for inviting me.”
    “You’re welcome here, always.”
    Longing pierced her, as potent—more potent—than she’d ever felt before. “Lord Thornhill proposed to me,” she told Cale.
    He was still; then he made an abrupt gesture with his hand before letting it fall to his side. Had he been about to reach for her?
    “Did you give him an answer?” His voice was smooth.
    “I told him I needed time to think.”
    Cale gazed into the fire. “You didn’t see the way he looked at you. Or you didn’t recognize it.”
    She blinked, startled. “What do you mean?”
    His voice took on a low fervency. “I watched you dance with him at the ball. He looks at you in awe, like you’re untouchable. He puts you on a pedestal, Elizabeth. He’ll treat you like glass, like you’re too fragile to hear certain things, to know certain things. He’ll make love to you in the dark with half his clothes still on, like a true aristocratic husband. He’ll be too afraid to break you. Or to ever really know you.”
    It took her a moment to speak past her consternation. “You gathered all of that from one dance?” she said, striving for levity, frightened by his intensity.
    “It’s not difficult if you know what to look for.”
    She didn’t think he was being quite fair to Michael. Thornhill might treat her delicately, as a gentleman would, but that didn’t necessarily mean he would put her on a pedestal. “He would be a better husband than Charles.”
    A wry laugh escaped Cale. “I doubt it would take much to be a better husband than Charles. But Thornhill still won’t treat you as you deserve to be treated.”
    She tipped her head. “How do you think I deserve to be treated?”
    His eyes glittered in the firelight. “Like a flesh-and-blood woman.”
    She wanted to look away and break the spell that enthralled her. But she found herself locked into place. “And that’s how you’ll treat me?” she whispered.
    “Yes.”
    “But you won’t offer marriage?” Somehow, the idea of a bookseller marrying a countess didn’t seem as laughable as it should have.
    A brief hesitation. “No.” Then a slight shake of his head, as though to reaffirm his pronouncement. “But…is marriage what you desire?”
    “It should be,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “It truly should be.” She stood up, pushing to her feet with unsteady arms. He noticed her shakiness, and reached out to grip her elbow.
    With the faintest sigh of surrender, she leaned into him.
    And, easing out that trembling breath, she lifted her face to seek his kiss.
    …
    The trip to Cale’s bedchamber was a hurried one. He lifted Elizabeth in his arms as though she weighed nothing and, without ever breaking the kiss, strode out the door and up the stairs.
    He laid her gently on his enormous bed and used kindling to light a few candles, illuminating the room with a faint glow. Then he came to her, canting his body over hers, meeting her lips as though it was the last time they would ever kiss.
    And maybe it was.
    But when his deft fingers slid under her back and began unfastening her gown, she stopped thinking about it. Her bodice and petticoat fell away. He cupped her breast through the thin cotton of her chemise, testing the weight. His thumb brushed over her nipple and it pebbled hard, and her back arched up to press her aching flesh more firmly into