Anne Barbour Read Online Free PDF Page A

efforts to purchase Goodhurst and grasped the opportunity to begin an early campaign. Lord, out here in the wilds of Gloucestershire, I had hoped to escaped the machinations of scheming females.”
    Robert smiled. He was well versed in his employer’s problems with the gentle sex. He had stared unbelievingly at balls and dinner parties where Mr. Wincanon had been positively swarmed on by avaricious mamas and their daughters. They waylaid him on the streets, for God’s sake. He had once seen a young woman fall to the ground in front of his horse in the park, so she could pretend the animal had run her down. And she was the daughter of an earl! Another female hired a street urchin to snatch her reticule so that Mr. Wincanon would rush to her assistance in Oxford Street.
    “Well, it sounds as though you made short work of her.” Robert continued offhandedly. “By the by, have you seen the current issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine?” Receiving a negative head shake, he continued. “It seems as though your friend Mordecai Cheeke has scored another triumph.”
    “Cheeke!” exclaimed James. “Now what?”
    “According to the article, he claims to have uncovered a temple to Ceres in Kent—near Tenterden.”
    “Oh, that. He mentioned it the last time we met—at a meeting of the Antiquarian Society, I believe.”
    Robert uttered a muffled snort and James raised his brows.
    “You disapprove of the eminent Mr. Cheeke?”
    Robert flushed. “It is not my place to approve or disapprove, sir, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this Ceres thing is all a hum. Of course, I have only met him a few times, in company with other of your colleagues, but”—he blurted—”the man strikes me as a self-aggrandizing buffoon. In fact, I’m not so sure he wouldn’t stoop to fraud to get his name in the newspapers.”
    “I must admit I’ve suspected the same,” replied James mildly.
    Robert continued somewhat belligerently. “It’s my belief the fellow has, in the past, stolen some of your theories. Lord knows he’s always sniffing around anytime you embark on a new project. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him turn up here, once word of the villa circulates in antiquarian circles.”
    “Like a ferret,” James agreed with some amusement. “With nose and whiskers aquiver. And now,” he concluded briskly, donning the coat held out to him by Friske, “enough of this unpleasantness. The ancient past awaits. Have you breakfasted?”
    The two gentlemen swung from the room, and an hour or so later, fortified with steak, eggs, and a tankard of ale, James departed from the house astride a mettlesome bay.
    At about the same time, Hilary left her own abode, gowned in yet another serviceable muslin and sturdy boots, Jasper at her side in the gig. She had been advised by both her father and their housekeeper, Mrs. Fimble, against going out today on the grounds that the weather looked extremely threatening. She had ignored these warnings, however, not to be put off from the unpleasant task that lay ahead of her. In the seat between her and Jasper reposed a sturdy umbrella of oiled silk.
    “Can you believe that anyone would act in such a rude, overbearing manner?” she demanded of the dog, whose only reply was a short, sharp bark.
    “The nerve of the man, implying that...” She paused uncertainly. Just what was it that he had implied? What was all that about her plan? He seemed to think that she had lied about her interest in the ancient world, and that she was trying to perpetrate some sort of fraud on him. How perfectly ludicrous, to say nothing of insulting! Well, he would think twice before offering her such an indignity again.
    She squirmed uncomfortably. Perhaps she had been a bit hasty in striking him. Fortunately, their quarrel had been unobserved, but certainly she had destroyed any chance of working with him. Of course, he had already ruined that opportunity.
    She went over his words again. Inventive but unoriginal?