Read The Pleasure of Your Kiss for Free Online Page A

woman who can compare to her! Her wit, her kindness, her courage, her passion for life, surpass every idle charm so prized by society. She is more than just a bride, both in my eyes and in my heart!”
    The thunder of his voice faded, leaving his impassioned declaration hanging awkwardly in the air.
    “So … ” Ash drawled, “just who is this paragon of feminine virtue I’m to rescue from the clutches of the evil sultan?”
    Max stiffened, dropping his gaze to the desk. “Miss Clarinda Cardew.”
    Without a word, Ash tossed the cheque back on the desk, rose, and went striding toward the flap of the tent.
    He heard Max surge to his feet behind him. “Please, Ash,” he said hoarsely. “I need you.”
    Ash stopped in his tracks, hearing in that plea an echo of the brother who had once been his staunchest ally.
    He had never dreamed this day would come. Never dared to hope his proud, self-sufficient brother would once again confess such a thing.
    Max valiantly struggled on. “I know you’ve never borne any particular fondness toward the young lady, but surely even you wouldn’t be so heartless as to abandon her to such a cruel fate.”
    Ash closed his eyes briefly before wheeling around to face his brother. “Fondness? You are speaking of the same Miss Clarinda Cardew whose father’s property bordered our own? The same Miss Clarinda Cardew who devoted her entire youth to making my life an utter misery? Because I’d hate to think I was tainting some other poor young woman’s reputation with the venom and rancor deserved only by that … that … creature !”
    Max sank back down in his chair with a defeated sigh. “She is one and the same.”
    “Well, that’s a relief!” Ash exclaimed with a harsh bark of laughter. “Because for a minute there, I thought it couldn’t possibly be the same Clarinda Cardew who dogged my every step from the time she was old enough to clamber over the fence between our properties. The same Clarinda Cardew who smeared the inside of my gloves and stockings with boot black, left a branch of poison sumac in my bed, and snuck into our stables to loosen the cinches on my saddle only minutes before I was to perform an important riding exhibition for Father and a handful of his most influential friends.”
    Max shook his head ruefully. “There’s no denying she was a bit of a handful when we were lads. Especially when it came to you.”
    Ash felt his face harden even further. His brother didn’t know the half of it. Apparently, Clarinda had never told him that the spark of animosity between them had finally flared into something so combustible it had threatened to incinerate them both.
    Max continued, “It’s her father who should be held accountable for her high spirits as a girl. The man always had more money than good sense. She was only eight when her mother died and he was the one who allowed her to run wild when what she needed was a firm but gentle feminine hand to guide her.”
    “What she needed was to be laid across someone’s knee and have the working end of a coal shovel applied to her impertinent little backside.” Ash closed his eyes briefly as a tantalizing image of that backside as he had last seen it flitted across his memory. “I suppose now you’re going to try and convince me the nefarious little hoyden has somehow transformed herself into a genteel lady fit to be the wife of the Earl of Dravenwood … and a future duchess?”
    Once again, Max seemed to be having great difficulty meeting Ash’s eyes. “I think I can safely say she is not the same girl you knew.”
    Given that Clarinda had agreed to marry his brother, therefore dooming herself to a lifetime of staid respectability, Ash could find no argument for that. He turned to pace the confines of the tent as if the purposeful motion could somehow contain the turmoil mounting in his mind and heart. “I heard she was to wed that Dewey fellow years ago. Shouldn’t she be long married by now and settled in