Tempting a Devil Read Online Free Page A

and foolhardy, Harry. You don’t know anything about me now. Perhaps you won’t like me anymore,” Roger argued logically. “Perhaps I am a rogue in sheep’s clothing, and guileless widows such as yourself should stay far, far away.”
    “Impossible,” she said, dismissing his argument. “I’ve heard no rumors that you have become a murderer, a molester of women, or a cardsharp. Barring those, I can think of nothing that would make me dislike you.”
    “I am one of the Saint’s Devils,” he said simply.
    “What on earth does that mean?” she demanded crossly. “Is that some sort of London code for men who wear sheepskin?”
    “Not quite,” he said, highly amused by her inadvertent double entendre, “but close.” He huffed out a frustrated laugh as he ran his hand through his hair, still trying to cool his libido after their brief encounter before he had realized who she was. All this talk of lovers was sheer torture. “It’s just a silly nickname given to me and my friends back when we were in school. It means I am a notorious rake,” he explained patiently. “I seduce women and let myself be seduced as frequently as possible. I drink to excess, Igamble, and I pursue pleasure with single-minded intent.” There, that ought to discourage her. “In honor of our past acquaintance, I will not make you yet another conquest for my diary.”
    Harry crossed her arms and let out an audible, “Ha.” Roger openly laughed at her. “That’s not fair,” she said, sounding like a barrister. “If you’ll bed everyone else in Christendom, why not me?” She pointed at herself for emphasis, drawing his eyes to her obvious womanly charms. She really was walking sin. “And a rake is exactly what I need. I need you.” She ticked off the reasons on her fingers. “One, I know you; quite well in fact. Two, I find you very attractive, and I know you find me equally attractive. Three, you are a rake. That means that you are well versed in the bedroom arts, and really, I must confess, I know next to nothing. So you shall teach me.”
    “No, I shall not,” Roger said firmly. “And nothing you can do will change my mind, Harry.”

Chapter Three
    “Everywhere I go, there she is,” Roger complained as he reclined indolently in a chair in his friend Alasdair Sharp’s office. He was draped across the chair, one leg thrown carelessly over the arm as he repeatedly tossed a Murano glass paperweight into the air and caught it. “I feel like the fox at a hunt. If I were a smart man, I’d go to ground.”
    Sharp looked up from the papers he was packing at his desk. “Yes, I heard about her pursuit of you from Hil.” His grin was positively evil. “I wish we weren’t going to Italy just yet. I’d love to watch when she finally catches you.”
    Roger caught the paperweight and pointed at Sharp as he regarded him with narrowed eyes. “You are a devil to wish such a fate upon me. I see how miserable you are since you’ve been caught.”
    Sharp had the gall to laugh at him. “Yes, positively despondent. I don’t know how I shall be able to stand three months gallivanting around the Italian peninsula with my shrew of wife.”
    “I heard that,” his maligned wife called through the open door between Sharp’s study and the drawing room. “It is I who shall suffer the most.” She wandered into the office and pouted theatrically. “I daresay we’ll be tossed out of every cathedral in Italy when they see my devil of a husband.”
    “I’ve already visited most of the cathedrals in Italy without heavenly retribution,” Sharp commented mildly, reading over one of his papers.
    His wife, Julianna, yanked the paper down with one finger and stuck her tongueout at him. It was rather amusing to watch the little brown-haired minx square off with his tall, blond friend. Not for the first time he felt a little foolish over his first impression of the new Mrs. Sharp. He’d thought her plain and dull, no match for Sharp’s