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Chapter One

The voluptuous blond woman lifted up on an elbow and pulled a sheet to her breasts Frowning slightly, she studied the darkly handso at theof his bedcha out across the back lahere a party in honor of his ress "What do you see that interests you ton asked as she wrapped the sheet around herself and walked over to the

Jordan Addison Matthensende, the future Duke of Hawthorne, seerounds of the palatial estate that would, upon his father's death, becoe e fro a brief, furtive look about her, she straightened the bodice of her dress and smoothed her heavy dark hair into soed, retying his neckcloth Their laughter drifted up through Jordan's openas they linked arms

Mild cynicism marred the youthful handsomeness of his lean features as Jordan watched his mother and her newest lover cross the lawns and saunter into the arbor A few e maze, looked about him, then retrieved Lady Milborne, his current paramour, from the bushes

"Evidently my mother has acquired a new lover," Jordan drawled sarcastically

"Really?" Lady Harrington asked, peering out the"Who?"

"Your husband" Turning fully toward her, Jordan studied her lovely face, searching for son of surprise When he saw none, his own features hardened into an ironic ether, and that accounts for your sudden, unprecedented interest in my bed, is that it?"

She nodded, uneasy under the relentless gaze of those cool grey eyes "I thought," she said, running her hand up his hard chest, "it would be aether But my interest in your bed isn't sudden, Jordan, I've wanted you for a long ti each other, I saw no reason not to take what I wanted Where's the harm in that?"

He said nothing and her eyes searched his inscrutable features, her smile coy "Are you shocked?"

"Hardly," he replied "I've known about ht years old, and I doubt I could be shocked by what any wo, I'm surprised you didn't contrive for all six of us to ether," he finished with deliberate insolence

She hter, part horror "Now you've shocked me "

Lazily he reached out and tipped her chin up, studying her face with eyes too hard, too knowledgeable for his years "Somehow I find that impossible to believe"

Suddenly embarrassed, Catherine pulled her hand from his chest and wrapped the sheet more securely around her nakedness "Really, Jordan, I don't see why you're looking athonest bewilderment and a little pique "You aren't married, so you don't realize how insufferably dull life is for all of us Without dalliance to take one's o quite mad"

At the tragic note in her voice, humor softened his features and his firm, sensual lips quirked in a derisive s out and brushing his knuckles against her cheek "What a miserable lot you wo you want is yours for the asking, and so you have nothing to work for—and even if you did, you'd never be permitted to work for it We don't allow you to study and you're forbidden sports, so you cannot exercise yourto, for although aas he wishes, yours is between your legs, and you lose it to the first man who has you How unjust life is to you!" he finished "No wonder you're all so bored, amoral, and frivolous"

Catherine hesitated, struck by his words, not certain whether he was ridiculing her, then shrugged "You're absolutely right"

He looked at her curiously "Did it ever occur to you to try to change all that?"