A Touch of Passion Read Online Free Page A

throw over her knees for effect. “Perhaps I should accompany you?”
    Portia would have taken Rose’s warning more seriously if it hadn’t been accompanied by a small giggle. “You’re just as eager as I am to understand why Grayson wants to meet me here of all places.”
    “Exactly. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens is no place for a lady to roam unescorted. I’m surprised Lord Blackwood suggested meeting here. Once you get on the rowboat with him you cannot turn back. Perhaps that is his plan.” She flashed Portia one of her wicked smiles. “I’m not sure I approve.”
    Exasperation bubbled up inside her. “That’s not what you said over half an hour ago. You thought Grayson requesting me to meet him here was a sign he was finally interested. The beginning of a romantic liaison, you said.”
    Rose shrugged her delicate shoulders and pulled the fur higher up her body. “I was simply hoping for the best. He’s the reason you’ve reached four and twenty unmarried.”
    Thank goodness the dim carriage hid the flush heating her face. “Grayson, along with every other rake in London, is the reason I remain unmarried.” She did not want to admit that the handsome and charismatic Grayson Devlin, Viscount Blackwood, was the only man who made her heart long for more. “I may not wish to give up my freedom in marriage—I see no benefit at all in doing so—but that does not mean I wish to remain ignorant of the joys to be had in this life. You positively glow when a man is sharing your bed.”
    “I’m allowed to glow. I’m a widow, remember? Society would unleash holy hell upon you if the unmarried Lady Portia Flagstaff were caught ‘experimenting’ with passion. They already frown upon your occupation with the cider mill, and that is the least of your black marks in their eyes. Don’t annoy the sleeping beast.”
    Her cider mill had started as a hobby because she was bored. Now her Garden Cider was sought after in all the fine houses from Somerset to London. The money she made was funding a school for orphans near her family’s estate. Even though she ran the cider mill for charity, society still managed to frown on the fact she insisted on being involved in the day-to-day running of the business. The men did not like that a young woman could set up and run a successful business. They had tried to blacklist her cider; however, it was so good that people bought it anyway.
    Portia stared back out into the night, nerves stretched taut. Swinging back to Rose, she said, “Unfair. Just because you married a man old enough to be your grandfather and he had the decency to die not long after, you’re free to enjoy life to the fullest. While I must toe the line of respectability, men can behave virtually however they wish. I wouldn’t even be allowed to run my business except for the fact that first Robert was the nominal head of the business, and since his death Philip has been.” She looked down her nose. “It allows men to pretend a woman has not succeeded in their world.”
    Rose shook her beautifully coiffed head. “Sometimes I think it would have been kinder if your mother had borne six boys instead of five boys and you.”
    Portia shrugged and said the one thing that would silence Rose. “But then you wouldn’t have met Philip.” She’d been wondering how to bring up the subject of Rose’s affair with her brother. “I hope you won’t hurt him. I can already see he’s fallen under your spell, as most men do, and I’d hate to lose you as a friend.”
    “How long have you known?”
    She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve known you since I was five, and we’ve always shared every detail of our lives. When that gossipmonger Penelope Carthors took delight in informing me at Lady Skye’s ball that you had a new lover, and this was something you’d not shared with me, and I saw Philip slip away for the exact amount of time you took to tour the flower beds …” Her words petered out when she watched her friend’s