Bad Kitty by Debra Glass.pdf

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Bad Kitty

ISBN 9781419923548

Edited by Kelli Collins

Photography and cover art by Les Byerley

Electronic book Publication August 2009

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales

is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

B AD K ITTY

Debra Glass

Chapter One

London, 1820

“Oh my dear, he isn’t received,” Lady Martha Ashcroft whispered under her breath

to Lady Emily Blevins.

Katrina Hartford had never been one to be entertained by idle gossip but Lady

Ashcroft’s harsh condemnation of another party guest snared her attention.

“Indeed?” Lady Blevins inquired, squinting to view the subject of scandal.

“I’m shocked to see him here. He has the most deplorable reputation.”

Katrina would have passed them by on her way to hear one of the local girls play

the pianoforte but instead, out of curiosity, she lifted her gaze to see for herself about

whom the ladies spoke so harshly.

It was a mistake.

Even amidst the crowd of summer season party attendees, Katrina knew

immediately which one held the deplorable reputation.

Taller than the others and with a head full of wavy black hair, the man was

arrogant, too proud in his stance. Although his coat was tailored to his body perfectly,

he was far too big and broad to have been bred a gentleman. Instead he had the

physical build of a man who knew hard labor, who worked outdoors. His skin was as

dark, as olive, as that of a gypsy. A commoner.

His dove-colored breeches strained, leaving little to the imagination, and when

Katrina realized she was gaping at the bulge at his crotch, she chided herself and tore

her gaze away.

And yet there was something graceful about his movements, the way he held his

brandy snifter, his posture, which revealed the breeding of a gentleman.

Bad Kitty

Katrina swallowed. He had the look of a predator—a sleek, black jungle cat on the

prowl who captivated his prey with hungry eyes.

There was something else about him Katrina could not put into words. Because of

Lady Ashcroft’s condemnation and Katrina’s own intense aversion to cocksure men like

this one, she stopped to hear more.

“Oh yes,” Lady Ashcroft continued, her rouged lips pursing with self-superiority.

“That is Bram Barclay, Earl of Wiltshire, the only son of the Duke of Whitfield.”

“The man looks coarse,” Lady Blevins added.

“Ha!” Lady Ashcroft chided. “Coarse is hardly the word to describe Wiltshire.”

Katrina wished they would get on with their gossip. She couldn’t hover behind the

two ladies long without attracting their attention and subsequently being foisted as a

potential marriage partner on their grandsons and nephews.

No. Katrina had no desire to marry. Her parents had both left her a comfortable

inheritance. Although at twenty-two, she was still a ward of her father’s brother, Jasper

Hartford, she hoped one day to settle into a small estate and pursue her passion for

writing.

Already she had a following, anonymously writing political satire under the

decidedly male pen name of Alistair Allenby. Katrina was an avid fan of Mary

Wollstonecraft, the author of The Vindication of the Rights of Woman , and believed as she

had that both women and men were responsible for the inequalities between the sexes.

Why women would allow themselves to be coddled, patronized and, above all,

controlled by men was beyond Katrina.

“Do tell,” Lady Blevins encouraged her friend.

Yes, get on with it , Katrina thought impatiently.

Lady Ashcroft leaned closer, as if she had a precious morsel to impart, the

decorative ostrich plumes in her hair partially obscuring Bram Barclay from Katrina’s

view.

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