Don't Tempt Me by Loretta Chase Page B

laughter. This was but one reason Lady Jersey loathed her.
    â€œI’ve taken Lord Lexham’s daughter under my wing,” he said.
    She closed the box. “But all of his daughters are launched and wed—” She broke off, the truth dawning. She was, after all, both intelligent and well informed. “You refer to the…”
    He didn’t wait for her to hunt for a more tactful term. “The Harem Girl, yes,” he said.
    â€œMy goodness.” She moved away from him to the nearest chair and sat down hard—but tightly clutching the box, he noted.
    â€œThere’s going to be a ridiculous uproar tomorrow,” he said. “Completely ridiculous, as the world will soon discover. For the time being, discretion would be in order. Miss Lexham has some prejudice to overcome: Her recent past is not regarded as respectable.”
    â€œAnd I am not well loved by some who decide who is acceptable and who is not. Your…er…protégée will want the blessing of Almack’s lady patronesses, as well as the Queen.”
    Queen Charlotte didn’t like Lady Tarling, either.
    â€œIt will not take long,” he said. “By the time she’s presented at court, no one will turn a hair.”
    â€œYou are very confident,” she said.
    â€œOh, Zoe’s intelligent and beautiful,” he said. “I’ve no doubt she’ll take. It’s merely a question of quieting the uproar and retraining her a bit.”
    â€œIntelligent and beautiful,” Lady Tarling murmured. She opened the box again and studied the jewels therein. “I see.”
    He didn’t know what she saw, and it didn’t occur to him to be curious. He was not accustomed to explaining himself and had gone as far as this only because their liaison had scarcely begun, and he wasn’t quite finished with her.
    It never dawned on him—and why should it?—that she was intelligent enough to perceive this.
    Still, he was the Duke of Marchmont, and Lady Tarling was no fool when it came to men. She accepted the gift and pretended it was perfectly normal for him to depart soon thereafter with no other display of affection. She knew as well as anybody that he’d very little of that article to display.
    Later that evening
    Zoe stood at the window and looked down into the garden. “I could climb down from here,” she said.
    â€œOh, no, miss, I hope not,” said Jarvis. “And not in your shift—which maybe we could change for your nightdress?” The maid held up the garment.
    â€œI climbed out of the pasha’s palace many times,” Zoe said. “They always caught me and punished me. But I did not stop doing it. Do you know why?”
    â€œI’m sure I don’t, miss.”
    â€œI did it because I knew that one day they would not catch me, and so I must keep in practice for that day.”
    The day had come, as she’d known it would, and it had come without warning. During the evening meal, Karim had simply fallen off the divan, clutching his throat, and died. His grief-stricken father, at whose side he’d been sitting, had taken to his bed. Within hours, he, too, was dead.
    Zoe hadn’t waited to find out whether or not these were natural deaths. She’d seen pandemonium, and she’d taken advantage of it. While everybody wasrunning about, the women tearing their hair and shrieking and weeping and the men shouting and arguing and threatening one another, she collected her jewels, stole a cloak, climbed out of a window, and fled through the garden.
    Jarvis’s voice called her back to the present. “Miss, I do hope you’re not thinking of running away now. Her ladyship gave me strict orders—”
    â€œNo, no, I’m not running away.” Zoe came away from the window. “But I never could abide being confined—to the nursery, to the schoolroom. So I always looked for the way out.”
    â€œI