His Michaelmas Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page A

closely with Lucky, and there was never a better Royal Engineer than Lucky. Me and Tiny forged an instant bond, it took a little longer for some of the others to warm up to me. And…now…look at how far I’ve come…I am rolling in the blunt. I have good friends, an easy life, and I had you. I’ve worked so hard to get where I am, and then, I look at some of the women at the balls I now attend, and they look at me like I am still a street rat. Those lady toffs look at me as if I am beneath their touch, and I have to say, it does sting sometimes.”
    Tears slipped from her beautiful eyes, and he resisted the urge to wipe them away. He hated the fact that he was causing her pain.
    How could this day have gone so terribly wrong?
    “And mayhap that is what you secretly think of me. You think I am a lady toff, don’t you? I have lived the life of ease. I’ve never had to work for anything. I barely know how to dress myself. Is that what you think?” her voice broke with her emotion.
    “You wouldn’t need to know how to dress yourself with me around,” he said cheekily. “I would be more than happy to help you out of your frocks, your nightgowns, your stays...”
    “Oh, Freddie,” she sighed, and pushed away from him. “I could probably say it till I was blue in the face, but you wouldn’t really believe me. I don’t care where you came from, I fell in love with the man you are now. I couldn’t give a tinker’s damn that you…”
    “I am common, Julia,” he said bluntly. “I was a street urchin, a dirty little brat. After my mother died, and my bastard of a father married a bitch who hated me, I had no choice but to live on my own wits.”
    “Whatever you want to think. I obviously can’t change your mind. I begged you to marry me back at the church, and you still walked out on me. No one in this world can make you do something you don’t want to do—not even me. You paint a rather grim picture of yourself, Freddie. You are a smart man, and even if you weren’t educated before you entered the Army, you are now. You are more intelligent than some of the lords I have met, and you are certainly one of the best looking men I have ever met.”
    He chuckled. “Then, maybe you haven’t met enough men. You can engage me in civil whiskers all night, but I ain’t going to seduce you, Julia. You need to leave now.”
    “Leave this house? This beautiful mansion that I put so much work into? You must be dreaming.”
    “It’s not a house or a mansion. It is a palatial home, Julia. I thought that Lark Hall was too fancy for me to sit or even rub against the walls in, and now, now, I own a house that almost matches it in finery, and you know, I don’t even know if I want to sit on any of the furniture that isn’t in the manly rooms.”
    “The manly rooms?” she asked, with a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.
    “Aye,” he said. “The Billiards Room, is one of them. This place is fit for a bloke like me, and I won’t have to worry that I will break the chairs in here. Now, the Ante Library, that’s pretty manly too, and that Saloon that you draped in crimson wall hangings, ain’t too delicate either.”
    “So, you like the Ruby Saloon?” she asked softly.
    “Is that what you’re calling it?” he asked. “Aye, I like it. Red is a favourite colour of mine.”
    “I wonder why,” she smiled.
    “And there you stop, my lady. You’re quite the gabster, and though you have enchanted me thus far, I must end it now, lest it bring me back into falling for your womanly charms.”
    “Freddie, if anyone is a gabster here, it is you. You have been doing most of the talking.” She smiled serenely at him.
    “Have I?” he grumbled. “Probably because I need to do something to take my mind off that delicious frock you’re wearing. You are rather exposed in it, and I’m trying damn hard not to make you more exposed.”
    “That is the point, my love,” she said, smiling sensually at him.
    His