Once A Rake. Rona Sharon

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      SECRET KISSES

      “Who taught you to kiss like this?”

      “No one.” Her sultry voice glided over him in a caress. “You…did.”

      “You never kissed anyone other than me?” he asked, incredulous but also absurdly pleased. When she shook her head, a rush of masculine satisfaction coursed through him. He occupied his mouth with kissing her lips, her cheek, her delicate jaw…anything but reveal he wanted her for his own. But Isabel could probably see right through him, the little temptress.

      “You have not sold your soul to the Devil, have you?” she whispered teasingly.

      “No, but he keeps pounding on my door.”

      “Stilgoe escorted me to the ball tonight,” she shared with him as he nibbled on her adorable earlobe.

      “Does he know you came out here to see me?”

      She tipped her head aside, inviting him to kiss the sensitive area beneath her ear. “Sophie and Iris…but they don’t know about you…yet. They promised to explain away my absence.”

      The relief he felt was testimony of his black character. A scrupulous gentleman would send her back inside; he would not ignore her perfectly clear and justifiable insinuations and continue to take liberties with her person. Nevertheless, she looked so achingly beautiful in the moonlight, her delicate features expressing rapture, that he couldn’t let her go just yet…

      Books by Rona Sharon

      MY WICKED PIRATE

      ONCE A RAKE

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

      ONCE A RAKE

      RONA SHARON

      ZEBRA BOOKS

       Kensington Publishing Corp.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

      For Ari—

       the adorable little lion and recent addition to our family.

       I love you.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter Twenty-Three

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      Chapter Twenty-Six

      Chapter Twenty-Seven

      Chapter Twenty-Eight

      Chapter Twenty-Nine

      Chapter Thirty

      Chapter Thirty-One

      Chapter Thirty-Two

      Chapter Thirty-Three

      Chapter Thirty-Four

      Chapter Thirty-Five

      Chapter One

      Like to a hermit poor, in place obscure,

       I mean to spend my days of endless doubt,

       To wail such woes as time cannot recure,

       Where none but Love shall ever find me out.

      —Sir Walter Raleigh

      London, 1817

      Isabel Aubrey drew a fortifying breath and climbed the front steps of Lancaster House. The Earl of Ashby’s private residence was situated on Park Lane, the finest street address in Mayfair. For years she had passed by his home, aware he was somewhere on the Continent, risking his life fighting against Napoleon. Then two years ago, soon after Waterloo, he had come back.

      Her heart beat wildly as she tapped the brass knocker against the door and waited. A rotund butler answered the door. “Good morning, miss. How may I help you?”

      Isabel smiled. “Good morning. I’m here to call on his lordship.”

      The butler shook his bald head ruefully. “His lordship doesn’t receive callers, miss. My apologies, and a good day to you.” The door closed softly in her face.

      Drat. Isabel stepped back, churning with disappointment. She’d been so preoccupied with tamping her emotions upon coming to see him that it hadn’t occurred to her Ashby might refuse to see her at all. Yet it was not her in particular he refused to see—it was anyone.

      “Shouldn’t we return home now, Miss Isabel?” her maid inquired from the sidewalk, where she dutifully kept watch for passersby. Isabel glanced back. Except for a fruit cart, the street was empty. It was yet early for the haut ton to crawl out of its soft beds, but she still had to watch out for the demented early risers who went riding in the park. “We’ll get into a lot of trouble, should anyone spot us on the Gargoyle’s doorstep,” her maid added fretfully, glancing right and left.

      “Please don’t call him so, Lucy,” Isabel berated her maid. “His lordship deserves our pity, not our ridicule.” Yet Lucy had a point. If word got around that she’d paid a personal visit to the Gargoyle—when it was a very strict rule that no unmarried lady with magnificent prospects ever called on a gentleman except upon a business or a professional matter—her mother would have a fit, and her elder brother, Viscount Stilgoe, would marry her off to the first single gentleman she waltzed with at Almack’s

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