Byron's Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

expression like a badge of office—here was the head of the family, a man with weighty problems on his mind.
    Perhaps because the addition of new family members increased the consequence of his position, he accepted Charlotte’s introductions with complacency.
    “How d’ye do, Miss Judith.” He bowed to Jodie, then shook Giles’s hand. “Cousin, I’m happy to make your acquaintance. From the Colonies, my wife tells me. Former colonies, I should say. Thorncrest, allow me to present my American cousins.”
    Jodie almost gasped as she curtsied to the earl. He was startlingly handsome, dark, with an arrogant nose, cynical mouth and determined chin. Hair as black as her own curled crisply and his piercing eyes held a disturbing glint. Bowing, he raised one eyebrow quizzically in an intentional reminder that she had been caught snooping. To her intense annoyance, she felt herself blush.
    No wonder poor Emily was out of her depth. Jodie saw that she had taken a seat in an out-of-the-way corner, her head bowed over a piece of embroidery.
    Jodie had no intention of being intimidated. “How do you do, my lord,” she said sweetly, before adding a deliberate provocation. “You are an earl? We have abolished titles in the States, of course. Cousin Charlotte explained your English feudal system, but I fear I have forgotten—you are one rank above a duke, are you not?”
    “Two below, Miss Judith,” he replied promptly, looking amused rather than angry at being forced to admit his relative unimportance.
    Roland, however, was as disconcerted as if a kitten had opened its mouth and roared like a lion, and Charlotte sent Jodie a glance of appeal.
    “Why, Jodie, I’m surprised you do not remember,” Giles intervened, his voice full of barely suppressed laughter. He went on, “My sister has the greatest admiration for the English peerage. She’s been begging me for years to bring her to see our ancestral home.”
    “Nonsense, Giles,” said Jodie indignantly, “you were just as keen as I.”
    Giles and Lord Thorncrest laughed, while Roland frowned. Jodie saw the viscount glance at Emily, alarmed lest she be tempted to emulate this piece of sisterly impertinence. Quiet in her corner, she did not appear to have heard.
    Lord Thorncrest took the offensive. “Miss Judith, your speech is very different from your brother’s. Your American accent is much stronger than Mr. Faringdale’s, if you will forgive my mentioning it.”
    As if an American accent were an unmentionable disease, Jodie fumed, but she had no ready answer. Charlotte, too, looked blank.
    Once again, Giles stepped into the breach. “I was lucky enough as a child to have an English governess,” he said, his eyes daring Jodie to disavow his words. “Unfortunately, she returned home before Jodie was old enough to profit by her example.”
    “Ah, I see,” the earl murmured, adding just loud enough for Jodie to hear, “no doubt that is sufficient explanation for her…manners.”
    Jodie had to admit to herself that he had drawn first blood. Worse was to come. Charlotte, in an attempt to forestall further questions about the differences between brother and sister, launched into an explanation of Jodie’s supposed Red Indian ancestry.
    By the time she finished her noble effort, Roland looked distinctly uneasy. Lord Thorncrest merely raised his quizzing glass and studied Jodie with a sardonic air.
    ~ ~ ~
    “For all the world as if I were a savage!” Jodie stormed to Emily. The gentlemen had gone up to remove their travel dirt, Charlotte accompanying her husband, and Giles had returned to the library.
    “It makes me want to run away when he looks at me like that,” Emily confessed.
    “It makes me want to hit him, the MCP.”
    “MCP?”
    “Male chauvinist pig. What a pity that he is so handsome it takes your breath away.”
    “I do not care for dark men,” said Emily positively. “Let us not talk about him. It makes me feel ill. Tell me what a male