Dawn Thompson Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t see at all. His eyebrow lifted, and his forehead wrinkled in a thoughtful frown, narrowing his gaze. “All haste to the anvil, with both parties’ fathers in such a storm? An odd business, I daresay. Why not a cozy drawing room, or a church wedding? Or was this the sort of wedding that is prodded by the barrel of a gun?”
    “I wouldn’t know, sir,” said the coachman. “My coach is for hire to any who can pay the price. I do not make it a practice to meddle in my passengers’ affairs.”
    “Mmm,” Joss grunted. “I shall see you below. This time, stay there, if you please. Miss Applegate is in my care now. I will see to her needs from now on. You are obligated no longer.”
    With no more said, Joss led the coachman below and remanded him to Bates’s keeping, with a warning thathe’d best see that the man stay below stairs. The butler, having been awakened from a sound sleep by the reprimand, took charge, and Joss padded back to the yellow suite for a word with Grace.
    The housekeeper was still snoring in the chair when Joss entered. He didn’t dare call out to her for fear of waking her charge. Granted it was late, and Grace was certainly past her prime and overworked in an understaffed house, but that had always been the case at Whitebriar Abbey, and he couldn’t remember her ever failing him before. Gripping her shoulder, he shook her gently. She didn’t respond, and he shook her again. Bending close, he nudged her a third time, whispering her name. This time, her eyes popped open. It was a moment before they focused, and she vaulted upright in the chair, her bleary-eyed gaze sliding back and forth between him and the inert figure heaped with quilts in the sleigh bed across the way.
    “Can no one in this house be trusted to stay awake?” Joss gritted out through clenched teeth.
    “I dunno what happened,” Grace said. “I was wide awake, and then . . .”
    “You let that coachman, Sikes, into this room. What were you thinking?”
    “I never done no such, sir!” Grace defended.
    “Lower your voice,” Joss warned. “I just found him stooping over that bed”—he made a rough gesture toward it—“and you snoring like a bear. You don’t remember him being in this room?”
    “I do not! I’d have died o’ fright if I seen ’im in here.”
    “What am I to do now?” Joss said, low-voiced, waving a wild arm in the air. “I cannot very well remain in this room in your place without compromising the young lady, and I cannot trust you to stay awake. Something isnot as it should be, and I mean to get to the bottom of it, but first we must get through this accursed night. So! Here is what we shall do: You will remain here, and I will camp on the settle outside in the hall—”
    “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” Grace interrupted. “Ya can’t! It’ll break your back, that hard old thing!”
    “Better than having more harm come to the poor unfortunate girl in that bed.” The housekeeper opened her mouth to speak, but his raised hand and rigid posture would brook no opposition. “You’re certain you do not recall that man coming into this room?”
    “No, sir, I do not!” Grace said, indignant.
    “Hmmm. Well, he shan’t do it again. Now then, carry on, and call me at once if she comes ’round.”
    Joss didn’t wait for an answer. Stomping past her, he quit the chamber and paced a bit to calm himself before plopping down on the settle. Seldom used, it groaned with his weight. Thirty years ago, a hall boy would have been posted there . . . and then again, maybe not. The Abbey had always lacked servants; there were too many secrets to keep. How he’d managed to keep his own secret from the household was a bona fide miracle. They would all run screaming from the house if they knew the heir to Whitebriar Abbey had the power to shapeshift into the form of a wolf whenever he pleased, not to mention this new development, whatever it was. But that was largely due to the fact that he never