One Night of Scandal (35 page)

BOOK: One Night of Scandal

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Justin nodded sagely. ‘So why not take the wager?’

‘Because I may—just may—lose this one and…’ Lady Sally hesitated ‘…I am not certain what payment you would demand, Justin.’

Justin gave her a flicker of the wicked smile that had turned her heart inside out when she had been a débutante of eighteen.

‘Take the gamble,’ he said softly.

After a moment, Lady Sally held out her hand and his
own closed about it to seal the deal. This time he did not kiss the back of her hand as he had done at the Newlyns’ wedding, but turned it over and kissed the palm.

‘Do you wish to win or lose?’ he asked her.

Lady Sally stood up. She felt very strongly that it was time he should be gone, or she could not foretell the outcome of the evening. She had no wish to do something that she might later regret, and talk of the past was notoriously dangerous.

‘I always win, Justin,’ she said sweetly. ‘Surely you know that, my dear.’

But when the Duke had left and Lady Sally was all alone in her big four-poster bed, she admitted to herself alone that this time a certain whim in her made the thought of losing
almost
more attractive than that of winning.

‘I rely on you, Lucas,’ she said as she blew out her candle. ‘Do not let me down, or I very much fear that your brother will catch me at last, and I have outrun him for these fifteen years. Well, we shall see…’

And she fell asleep, to dream of the past and the as yet unpredictable future.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-3694-7

ONE NIGHT OF SCANDAL

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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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^*Bluestocking Brides

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