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

found the poise to respond, all she said was, “One hundred and two?”
    It was his turn to stare at her wide-eyed. She rather enjoyed shocking him, particularly when he’d set out to shock her first. He would have to learn she wasn’t one to back down from a challenge.
    “Perhaps,” he answered vaguely. And then he smiled. “You confound all my expectations, Miss Middleton. You delight me.”
    There was something in his voice, something soft and almost tender, something that set warning bells off in her mind and caused the skin on the back of her neck to prickle. “Quiet, Lord Thornhill. We are supposed to be appreciating the music . ”
    He grinned, but somehow even that looked tender. “Downstairs” was his only reply.
    She tore her gaze away from him and fixed it on the harpist. And tried with every ounce of will she possessed to focus on the sweet chords of the instrument…instead of the bewildering man beside her.
    But couldn’t quite manage it.
    …
    “What were the two of you whispering about?” Olivia asked when the sisters left their seats during the break, gathering by one of the windows to escape the stifling heat. “You and Lord Thornhill.”
    Michael had left the room a few minutes before. She would have to find a way to follow him.
    “We were commenting on the music.” Anne said neutrally.
    “Thornhill seems very interested in you,” Elizabeth noted.
    Anne swished her fan open and shut, then open again. “Just a friendly interest, I’m quite sure.”
    Her sister’s blue eyes bored into hers. “I wouldn’t be too certain.”
    “I would,” Anne snapped. “A man who was once in love with my sister isn’t very high on my list of suitors.”
    Elizabeth blinked. “That was a year ago,” she pointed out.
    “Yes, but we know how men fall all over you. I’ve no doubt he’s still smitten.” Anne nearly winced when the words left her mouth. Lord, she sounded like a shrew. Worse, she sounded jealous.
    “I don’t think his feelings were strong enough to linger this long,” Elizabeth said mildly. “And men don’t fall all over me. Don’t be ridiculous.”
    Olivia looked back and forth between the two of them.
    “I’m not being ridiculous,” Anne said vehemently.
    Her older sister’s expression softened. “Do you like him?”
    “Oh, what’s not to like?” Anne answered bitterly. “Aside from his proposal to you.”
    “He can’t change his mind?”
    “No! He can’t!” she said, though she knew it sounded childish. “I need to use the retiring room.” And she stalked away, leaving her sisters staring after her with nearly identical bemused expressions, which she pointedly ignored.
    She decided to find Thornhill, but she wasn’t certain if it was a good idea anymore. Her chat with Elizabeth had put her in a sour mood.
    Then again, she’d felt amazingly relaxed after what they’d done last night. It might make her feel better—if she could simply ignore…what? Her envy? Her irrational anger? The insidious wish that Thornhill had never proposed to Elizabeth, nor even ever wanted her?
    Anne slipped out of the drawing room and down the staircase. She hovered in the corridor on the ground floor until she saw candlelight seep from the crack under one of the doors. Pushing the door open revealed a simple morning room, and Thornhill sitting at a table. He was spinning his pocket watch on the satinwood tabletop—the object gleamed golden in the shifting light from candles on the mantel.
    She didn’t make a sound, and he hadn’t noticed her slipping into the room or shutting the door quietly behind her, but after a second his face lifted. He said her name, so quietly it was nearly inaudible. She couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question. The movement of the watch halted and it disappeared back into the hidden pocket on the inside of his trousers.
    Then he frowned. “Is something amiss?”
    She felt vulnerable under his perusal—a bird startled from the bush to the