Bewitching the Duke Read Online Free PDF

lover.
    She smiled at the thought. Being a wise woman, no one cared if she married or had a child without the bonds of matrimony. The only priority was bearing a child . . . not just a child, a daughter to teach the ways of the healers.
    While she hadn’t taken a man to her bed yet, she thought the duke might not be a bad first choice. But she would never do such a thing with a married man or even an engaged one. Pity that. She had a feeling he would be rather fine in bed.
    “Is there some reason you are here today?” the duke asked roughly.
    Selina blinked and heat crossed her cheeks. “I apologize, Your Grace. I was woolgathering.”
    “Indeed? Or attempting to determine the best way to announce yourself?”
    “A little of both,” she said and then walked directly into the room. Putting aside her mad desire for a man she could never have, she placed her wool satchel on the desk. “I am here to check on the progress of your foot.”
    “And if I say no?” He stared up at her with those icy blue eyes.
    His intense look almost intimidated her . . . almost. “Then I would have to take your foot like this,” she said, lifting his foot into the air and then placing it against her belly, “and unwrap your ankle with no assistance from you.”
    She could have sworn she heard a low growl from his throat. Ignoring the sensation of his bare foot on her stomach, she focused her attention on his ankle. “The swelling is down from yesterday.”
    “I am quite well.”
    “How many times have you sprained this ankle?”
    “At least five,” he replied. “The first time I was twelve when I fell out of a tree.”
    Selina shook her head. “It must never have healed properly. Who wrapped it then?” She felt him tense under her fingers.
    “Your mother,” he said in a low voice.
    “Oh.” Selina said nothing else. Thinking back, she realized that was about the time her father had died. Mother never completely recovered from his death. It was not long after her father’s death that the drinking began.
    “Perhaps there was nothing else she could do,” she finally whispered.
    “Or perhaps my stepmother should have called a physician to wrap it correctly,” he retorted.
    She remained silent and pulled out fresh linen from her satchel. After binding his foot again, she gently placed it back on the stack of books. “Do keep ice on it again today.”
    “I know what to do for my foot, Miss White.”
    “Excuse me, Your Grace,” Mr. Roberts said from the threshold. “Miss White, Mrs. Graham asked that you attend to her mother as quickly as possible.”
    Selina gathered her things. “Of course,” she replied.
    “Is there something wrong with Mrs. Graham’s mother?”
    “I won’t know until I get there,” she lied. After all his talk about a physician’s abilities and training, she wasn’t about to admit that she was most likely going to watch a woman die tonight.
     
     
    Colin sat at his desk with his foot propped up as dusk enveloped the estate. A cool breeze fluttered the curtains. He glanced over at them only to notice a woman sitting on the edge of the reflecting pond. Why would Miss White be sitting out there at this time of evening?
    For a long moment, he just stared. The wind blew her blond tresses in front of her face. She quickly brushed the hairs away. He felt entranced when she was near. It made no sense. She was the exact opposite of Mary.
    “Excuse me, Your Grace.”
    He glanced over at the door where Roberts stood with a grim look on his face. “What is it?”
    “Mrs. Fitzhugh passed a short while ago.”
    “Mrs. Fitzhugh?”
    “Mrs. Graham’s mother, sir. She had been ill for months.”
    While he’d read the rambling letters his steward sent him every month, he had no real knowledge of his tenants. Their passing had meant nothing to him. He looked back out at Miss White and wondered if she was responsible for the woman’s death. She had left here to attend to her. And yet, the wise woman