My Fair Temptress Read Online Free Page A

use? Diagrams on a slate?”
    “ She will demonstrate by example.”
    “You’ve hired me a whore?” Not even in his untried youth had his father hired him a whore.
    A rustle sounded from behind the screen. Jude registered it. Saw his father glance toward it, and realized he was not surprised. Realized Nevett had planted someone there, and that that someone had heard every word spoken.
    His father looked outraged and thunderously angry. “Son, for a dandy, you’ve a nasty mind. I hired a tutor from the Distinguished Academy of Governesses. The young lady is recommended by Lady Bucknell herself.”
    Who was behind the screen? What possible reason had his father for concealing someone there? Jude glanced sharply at his father. Nevett was relaxed, so…ah, it must be the female his father had hired.
    Yet Jude wondered if she could be more than Nevett realized? Was there suspicion about Jude? Could she be someone sent to spy on him? On Nevett?
    For the rest of his life, would Jude see danger in any situation? It was a grim consideration—and a real one, yet a quick review of the conversation eased his worries. If she had been sent to report his activities, she had heard nothing that would incriminate him.
    “I don’t understand, sir,” Jude said with an airy laugh. “Why would you hire a governess? Women adore me.”
    “Not enough to wed you.”
    “A man has to have standards!”
    “You have to be wed!”
    “Who is this person?”
    “What difference does that make to you, boy? She is the person I hired.”
    Catching at his fraying temper, Jude managed the correct question. “What does she look like?”
    “She looks well enough for this task,” his father said dismissively. “She’ll flirt with you. You’ll flirt with her. She will show you how to win a wife. Then you will go out into society and put your lessons to good use!”
    “Tell me one good reason why I should submit to such a humiliation.”
    “For my peace of mind.”
    “That’s not nearly good enough.”
    His father rose from his chair, a slow, majestic rise that brought him to his full height of six-foot-two and displayed not only the broad-boned frame which Jude had inherited, but also the imposing authority he could exhibit as he wished.
    Jude rose, also, but at that moment, he knew he had met his match. Jude might be younger and stronger, but he respected his father too much to go head to head with him. So it was with a rare sense of defeat that he heard his sentence.
    “Very well,” Nevett said with freezing courtesy, “if you don’t care about my peace of mind, you’ll care about this. If you don’t accept this tutor, if you don’t give this tutor your full cooperation, I’m going to find you a maiden, arrange a contract of marriage, and let’s see you get out of that one, my lad!” Nevett lifted his fist. “Let’s see how you’ll manage to avoid an energetic mama when I’ve promised her you’ll make her daughter the next duchess!”
    Jude recognized defeat when it stared him in the face. And this was defeat, a complication unlike any other he could imagine. Lowering his head, he gazed at his very shiny boots. “Very well, sir, you win. When will the lessons commence?”
    “Tomorrow. She’ll meet you in Hyde Park. You’ll know her by the red rose she wears in her lapel.”
    “Good God, sir, how trite!” Jude said, irritated beyond measure.
    “Trite or not, willing or not, you’ll do as she instructs, or b’God I’ll sic the entire Fairchild family of females on you, and you’ll be lucky to escape with your sanity, much less your freedom.”
    Knowing the Fairchilds as he did, Jude took that threat seriously. “I’ll do it.” Feebly, he flapped his lace handkerchief as if whisking away an evil smell. “But I won’t like it.”

Chapter 3
    I n high dudgeon, Lord Huntington removed himself from Nevett’s study, and Caroline walked around the decorative screen. She met Nevett’s gaze directly. “His lordship