An Unmistakable Rogue Read Online Free PDF Page A

children were gone. She lit the candle, grabbed her knife, and ran toward the chaos, arriving in time to catch Rebekah sinking her teeth into Reed Gilbride’s thigh.
    “Damnation!” the man swore as she bit him, and Chastity noted with grudging approval that he actually pried the child gently free, though Bekah held his flesh in her teeth like a dog with a bone.
    “I’m going to thrash the lot of you, you miserable pack of scruffy bast—”
    “Mr. Gilbride!” Chastity shouted.
    Caught in the act of raising a table above the man’s head, Mark had the grace to stop and look sheepish when he saw her.
    “These dirty little beggars tried to rob and assault me!” Reed shouted.
    Rebekah had pulled away when Chastity spoke, but with the man’s insult, she bit into him again.
    “Damnation!” Reed wound his arm about her little waist and pried her from his flesh, setting off her ear-splitting wail. “Believe me, Missy. That hurt me a hell of a lot more than it hurt you.”
    “Unhand those children, you disagreeable man!”
    “Believe your eyes, woman. ‘Twas I who was set upon, here. Look, the man-eater’s drawn blood.”
    Chastity regarded his thigh as he knelt there, mostly covered by his blanket, and though it was still not quite dawn or light enough to discern details, he must be naked. He seemed to realize it at the same moment.
    With a squeak, Chastity turned her back and blew out her candle, Mark dropped the table, and several sets of small arms closed about her.
    Putting down her knife and candle, Chastity hugged each child in turn, reassuring herself, and them, that they were safe. “Who is missing?”
    When the fourth hug came, she released her breath.
    As dawn broke, Reed Gilbride stepped before her, hands on hips, now wearing nothing but a pair of well-worn buckskin trousers. His wide shoulders and hair-matted chest, his furrowed brow and whisker-shadowed jaw, put her in mind of a dark angel ... bent on revenge.
    “Such a big brute,” she said, trying to regain her scattered wits in the face of his potent masculinity, “to be overset by a few, small children.”
    His look turned incredulous. “Bedlamites! I’ve wandered into an escaping band of Bedlamites. They bound my ankles! Where are my boots?”
    “Give Mr. Gilbride his boots,” Chastity demanded. “Now!”
    No one moved.
    “Return those boots this instant, or I will let Mr. Gilbride have at you.”
    Matt pulled the boots from behind a cabinet and offered them with a long stretch of his arm.
    “Thank you.” Reed took them none too gently. “Are these your children, Madam?”
    “No.” Chastity felt Mark stiffen. “Yes!  Yes, they are.”
    “No we’re not, Kitty.”
    “Hush, Luke.”
    Reed stepped back as if struck. “Good God, it’s you .”
    “Oh, bother,” Chastity said.
    “I can’t believe it. Damnation, woman, I thought you were alone, here, but ... children of all things.”
    “Go away then, because we don’t like you, either.”
    “Mark!” Chastity snapped.
    Reed ran a hand through his hair and gazed out the window. “Children! Can’t abide the little beggars.”
    “Do not speak of them in that insolent manner.”
    “Ill-mannered children deserve insolence in return.”
    “They have been abandoned .”
    He faced her. “That does not give them the right to rob and assault. If it did, half of England would be thieves. Life is hard. They’d best learn that and be honest and upstanding, despite their misfortune. Punish them if they do wrong, like anybody else.”
    “I will thank you to allow me to handle the children, Mr. Gilbride. They are my responsibility, after all.”
    “On whose authority?”
    She thought of her failure to save William, of the similar result if she failed the children. “On God’s authority.”
    His laugh mocked her, the dimples in his left cheek and the center of his chin deep and ... woman-slaying.
    Chastity’s anger became interest.  She swallowed and tried to ignore the pull. For