A Gentleman Says "I Do" Read Online Free PDF Page A

fierce protector of his family, but so was she.
    Collecting her thoughts, she reached over and placed her cup and saucer on the tray beside his before looking into his fathomless, icy blue eyes. With a calmness she didn’t know she was capable of, she asked, “Are you trying to frighten me, Mr. Brentwood?”
    He looked at her with hot intensity that made an unfamiliar but delicious sensation spiral through her. Her breath grew uncomfortably shallow as sudden heat flared inside her.
    “Absolutely not,” he answered her as calmly as she had spoken.
    “Then what were you intending by your previous remark?”
    His gaze held steadily on hers. “To threaten your father.”
    “And you don’t think a comment like that would frighten a gentle-born lady in her own home?”
    He smiled and nodded. “Most ladies, I agree, but not you.”
    Mr. Brentwood relaxed into the comfort of the armchair, and a sudden gleam shone in his eyes. Catalina’s breath caught in her throat again. He was a devilishly handsome man when he was so at ease. A true gentleman would never be so crass as to say such a thing to a lady, but she didn’t have time to ponder why she wasn’t offended by his remarks.
    “I’ve watched you closely, Miss Crisp.”
    Oh, yes, she knew how closely he had looked at her. Her skin had tingled responsively more than once when she caught his gaze skimming down her face. It was as if he was caressing her with his eyes. Even now, she knew he found her as attractive as she did him.
    He continued. “I’ve not seen a flicker of fear cross your lovely face.”
    He was obviously good at reading people, too.
    “What have you seen?” she asked, and the moment the words were out of her mouth she wanted to clamp her teeth together tightly and take them back.
    Why was she trying to engage this man and discover how he felt about her? She wasn’t a coquettish female trying to gain his attention or his favor. By his own admission, he intended to threaten her father with physical harm. That was all she needed to know. He was not even a man she needed to converse with. She should have asked him to leave her house the moment he made his reasons known to her. No, the moment she saw him in the vestibule and knew this man had touched a place inside her no other man had been near. Instead, she foolishly chose to match wits with him because she found him so deliciously stimulating.
    “I can’t say right now, because I think you are hiding something, Miss Crisp, and I can only assume it is the whereabouts of your father.”
    Oh, he was good.
    She was hiding something: the fact that when her father had left without finishing the story he had promised to Mr. Frederick, she had been forced to finish it so he would be paid.
    And it wasn’t the first time she’d had to do it.
    In the past couple of years, she’d had to complete at least half of her father’s work. Sometimes he could get so enthusiastic about a story or a poem, he would write all day and night, never stop for food, drink, or sleep. And at other times, like with A Tale of Three Gentlemen , he would get bored or lose interest and never make the time to finish it. Half-finished work would not pay their obligations. Sir Phillip Crisp was a good father, a loyal friend, and a compassionate employer, but he had absolutely no head for business matters, deadlines, or duties.
    Catalina was the practical one in the family, and someone needed to be. She had taken over managing their business and household affairs when she was only sixteen years of age. Her father had no use for keeping account books balanced or even paying their debts on time. She had tried to explain to him that their expenses were increasing and he needed to write more often. They needed more money coming in each month. She might as well have been talking to a statue in the garden for all the good it did.
    Sir Phillip was a dreamer whose head was always in the clouds. For him, life was a lark. She had never seen her