Read Twice the Temptation for Free Online Page A

hunting?” he asked after a moment, beginning to wish that he didn’t find her so interesting.
    â€œHunting?”
    â€œYou look predatory.” Actually, she looked enchanting, all hazel eyes and honey-blonde hair beneath her prim blue bonnet, but considering the forthright way she had of expressing herself, he would not mistake her for an angel. “I would think you’d find more fertile hunting grounds in a ton ballroom.”
    Her fair skin flushed. “I am being observant. Anything else is your brandy-soaked imagination.”
    â€œFor the last damned time, I am not a drunk.”
    She pulled away from him and resumed her race along the southern boundary of Hyde Park. “I don’t care.”
    â€œAnd you’re not being observant. You’re being…calculating.”
    â€œI am not! I go walking every morning. I did not appear on someone else’s doorstep and insinuate myself into their daily exercise regimen.”
    Perhaps she had reacted a bit too stridently to Monmouth’s appearance, but for heaven’s sake, he didn’t need to stir such a tempest over it. She should have realized the duke was married, because he’d never made even a brief appearance on her list. Evangeline set her attention on the bridge that crossed the Serpentine. If Lord Rawley would leave her alone or at least stop being so…distracting, she would have realized that.
    She was only following her mother’s advice, anyway. No one had proposed to her yet, and until someone did, she had an obligation to herself to assess every eligible man. She did not, for instance, wish to end up married to a man as demanding of her wits and her attention as Connoll Spencer Addison was proving to be.
    â€œYou know,” his cool, masculine drawl came from beside her, distracting her from her thoughts yet again, “if you favor ‘distinguished’ men, the show you’re putting on now by sprinting along the walking path probably isn’t helping you.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?” she snapped.
    â€œA ‘distinguished’ gentleman seeing such athletic ability and youthful exuberance in a chit might think twice about forming an attachment to her. You could very likely kill him on your first night of wedded bliss. And though you might consider that a fortunate happenstance, he most likely would not. Any imaginings along that path might even cause him to seek out a meeker, less fit chit than yourself, if only to preserve his own health.”
    â€œThat’s awful!” she blurted, slowing a little to givehim a hard glare. “I am not some black widow or other spouse-eating insect. I am only looking for a gentleman who fulfills certain requirements. Age is not necessarily one of them.”
    â€œWhich requirements are they, then?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI’m curious. And quite possibly intrigued.”
    â€œWell, become unintrigued this instant, because all I will tell you is that you fulfill absolutely none of those requirements.”
    He lifted an eyebrow, handsome and collected and less out of breath than she was. “Not one?”
    â€œNot one.”
    That wasn’t entirely true, of course, because he was wealthy and did have a title. In fact, he actually fell quite well into certain categories she hadn’t heretofore considered. Lord Rawley spoke to her as though he expected her to be able to keep up with the conversation, for instance, which was actually nice, even refreshing, compared to the gentlemen who called her “my dear” or “my Aphrodite” and then allowed her to lead them about by the nose while they settled into the visions of their own superiority. Ha.
    â€œI think you need a different list of requirements,” he said easily, “because I have it on good authority that I am quite the catch.”
    Daisy hadn’t wanted him, but Evangeline refrained from saying that aloud. “If this is your