Conspiring with a Rogue Read Online Free PDF

up from the ledger. Lady Audrey breezed in and smiled sweetly. “Sweetikins, your next client is here. If you’re quite done talking to yourself maybe you can spare a minute for a paying client?”
    Whitney shut the ledger. It was hopeless anyway. She was in no mood to try to suddenly become good at math. “Do not call me sweetikins. We agreed. The pet name may stand only when in need of the ruse.”
    Lady Audrey plucked a pink rose from the vase on Whitney’s desk and gave her a wicked smile. “I know what we agreed upon, but it’s so amusing to see you get angry. Your eyes turn into two slits of golden daggers. I pity the man who marries you and your temper someday.”
    Whitney quickly glanced down at the ledger, her cheeks burning and her eyes prickling with tears she refused to allow. It was not likely she would ever marry if she continued to pretend to be a man. And if she continued to love Drake. Her heart squeezed painfully.
    “Mr. Wentworth?” Lady Audrey rapped her hand on Whitney’s desk. The pen Whitney had been using jumped and speckled dark ink across the scroll. She scrambled to clean the mess.
    Once the mess was contained, she glanced at Lady Audrey. “Who awaits me?”
    “Mr. Lloyd.”
    “Lloyd,
did you say?”
She would have fainted dead away had she not been sitting.
    “What on earth is wrong?” Lady Audrey whisked the ledger off Whitney’s desk and fanned perilously close to her nose.
    She waved Lady Audrey away. “I’m all right.”
    “You don’t look well. You’re sort of green.” Before Whitney could protest, Lady Audrey was around the desk, her arms encircling Whitney in a sisterly hug. “Shall I fetch you a glass of water?”
    “Don’t trouble yourself.” Whitney patted Lady Audrey’s arm, then gently pushed her away. “Do we know Mr. Lloyd’s Christian name?”
    Lady Audrey frowned at Whitney. “Of course I do. I’m an excellent assistant. I told you a fake engagement to me would benefit us both. I daresay, I wish I had thought of it before you blurted it to Papa so I could take credit for this exquisite arrangement.”
    “Lady Audrey, you digress again. Mr. Lloyd’s Christian name, please?”
    “Richard.” Lady Audrey wrinkled her nose. “He smells dreadfully of coffee, and I swear his fingertips are stained black. I think he’s a
commoner
.” Lady Audrey pushed the pink rose she had been holding behind her ear. “If you ask me, you shouldn’t take the job. I doubt the man can pay your fee.”
    Whitney reached over with trembling fingers and plucked the pink flower out from behind Lady Audrey’s ear. “I didn’t ask you. And do not speak ill of the merchant class. They are people, created by God the same as you or me. And do not,” she said, throwing the flower in the trash bin by her desk, “make me regret telling you a bit about my past.”
    “I’m sorry,” Lady Audrey murmured. And she truly did look sorry, but Whitney was too worried to comfort her. Disaster waited in the next room. What in the world was Lillian Lloyd’s father doing here? Had he come because he somehow had discovered Whitney’s true identity, or had he come because there was something wrong with Lillian? Both choices were bad.
    Whitney rose and gripped Lady Audrey’s arm. “I’m afraid our little ruse may be in danger.”
    Lady Audrey pressed her finger to her lips and hurried to the open study door, her skirts swishing as she went. “Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Wentworth will be just another minute.”
    Without waiting for his reply, she shut the door and rushed back over to Whitney, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her to the settee. “Who’s Mr. Lloyd?”
    “The father of my best friend from childhood.”
    Lady Audrey bit her bottom lip. “You’re right. This may not be good. I’ve saved up all my pin money.” She shrugged. “I could buy his silence if he knows anything.”
    The offer would have been amusing to Whitney if she wasn’t so darned worried. “He doesn’t need