A Gentleman By Any Other Name Read Online Free PDF

o’clock of the morning, indeed! Did the man possess no sense at all?
    â€œWatch her, please, Bettyann,” Julia asked of the housemaid who had followed behind Julia carrying Buttercup and a small portmanteau Julia had filled with items she considered necessary for a child’s comfort inside the coach. “I’ll only be a minute.”
    Julia paused a moment to look at the fog that all but obscured the street. At home there was nearly always a morning mist, but it was white and smelled like fresh grass and the sea. Here the fog was yellow, dirty. She believed she could actually taste it. “Why did I ever think I would care for London?” she asked herself, then hiked up her skirts with more of an eye toward speed than decorum and headed up the steps once more, for she’d left her bonnet, gloves and pelisse in the nursery.
    â€œHere now,” Chance Becket said warningly, grabbing at her shoulders as she all but cannoned into him, her gaze directed on the steps. “There’s no need for such a rush, is there?”
    Julia looked up at the man, struck yet again by his fine good looks and, this morning, the hint of real humor in his eyes. He was dressed for travel, a gray many-caped greatcoat hanging from his broad shoulders, the snow-white foam of his neck cloth visible at his throat, and he wore a matching gray curly-brimmed beaver hat.
    Tall, handsome, his smile almost boyish even while the sparkle in his eyes told her he was far from a boy. Julia sent up a short prayer that she wouldn’t disgrace herself by swallowing her own tongue, drat the man.
    â€œYou said six o’clock, sir,” she reminded him, doing her best to ignore the heat of his hands that could be felt through the thin stuff of her gown.
    â€œAh, so this is not Miss Julia Carruthers, is it? You only look like the woman. The Julia Carruthers I met yesterday would not only have snapped her fingers at my reasonable request but also told me she’d be ready to travel when she was ready to travel and not a moment before. I do believe I like this Julia Carruthers much more.”
    â€œYou have considered the fact that a five-year-old child travels with you, haven’t you, sir? That a long day and fresh horseflesh along the way could get you to the coast by very late this evening, but that such a punishing pace could be harmful to this child?”
    â€œTo Alice, Miss Carruthers. I do remember my child’s name,” Chance said, bristling. If he only had time to replace this infuriating woman, he would be a happy man. Ainsley would love her belligerent spirit, though. Since Chance was all but dumping Alice into his adopted father’s lap, he might as well sweeten the pot…a thought that, rather than warm him, sent a chill straight to the bone. “She’ll be fine.”
    â€œOf course, sir. You wouldn’t have it any other way,” Julia said, then rolled her eyes the moment she was past him and on her way up to the nursery again, and hang the fact that she’d opted for the main staircase. “Idiot,” she grumbled, hiking her skirts once more before she began the climb.
    She halted on the second-floor landing as Gibbons directed two footmen who were carrying baggage on their shoulders toward the servant stairs, then looked down the front staircase, assured herself she was alone.
    Wetting her lips, and with one more quick glance over her shoulder, she then gave in to what her father had termed her most besetting sin. She tiptoed down the hallway, into the bedchamber that had to belong to Chance Becket.
    She didn’t know precisely why she wanted to see the chamber, unless she hoped to glimpse something of the man there. And if that was the case, she was instantly disappointed.
    The man lived like a Spartan, the large chamber nearly devoid of any ornamentation save a few nondescript paintings on the walls. His brushes and many personal items were, of course, already on