His Wicked Embrace Read Online Free PDF

unintentionally took a step back from the carriage. It was all the space Isabella needed. Seizing her opportunity, she jumped lithely into the carriage. Once inside she slammed the door loudly and determinedly pulled down the shade.
    The earl turned a questioning eye to the older man who sat atop the box, holding the ribbons securely in his hand. “Are you in the lady’s employ?”
    â€œThe lady you are referring to is Miss Isabella Browning, my lord,” the servant answered readily. “Governess to the Braun family of Sparrow Court.” After responding to the earl’s s question, Hodgson flicked the reins and the coach moved forward.
    Isabella felt a vast sense of relief when the coach finally pulled away, but the astonished expression on the handsome stranger’s face stayed with her on the short ride home. Try as she might, she could not shake the unsettling feeling this was not the last time she would see those steely gray eyes.

Chapter Three
    The summons came before luncheon. Isabella glanced briefly at the potato soup, fenelle of fish, and fresh bread on her meal tray and sighed regretfully. Cook’s culinary skills were somewhat limited, and Isabella had learned the food was infinitely more palatable if eaten hot. She was certain that by the time her meeting with her employers was concluded, her meal would be ice cold and unappetizing.
    Before leaving the room, Isabella paused a moment to check her appearance in the tiny cracked mirror hanging on the wall. Several strands of her rich chestnut hair had come loose and were curled charmingly around her face. She immediately brushed them back and readjusted her severe hairstyle.
    Isabella studied the rigid face of the prim, straightlaced woman reflected in the glass, hardly believing she was looking at herself. Her life had taken a far different turn than she had ever imagined it would. She thought wistfully of the plans and dreams she had as a young girl, dreams of a loving husband and children of her own. Only by escaping to her fantasies had Isabella been able to survive the bitterness and hate her father directed toward her after her mother’s death.
    Not her father, Isabella sharply reminded herself, her stepfather. Discovering eight years ago that Charles Browning was not her natural father had brought a ray of hope into her bleak world. On her seventeenth birthday, Charles Browning had told her the truth about her birth and then shipped her to her mother’s family in York. “I’ve done more than my share,” he said in a chilling voice. “Let your mother’s snotty family care for their daughter’s bastard.”
    Charles Browning was hoping to wound Isabella with his revelations, but she did not react as he planned. She was happy to go. She firmly believed escaping from him was going to be the beginning of a new and wonderful life. At long last she would have her chance to be among a family who would love and cherish her.
    But it was not to be. Though bearing little physical resemblance to her mother, Isabella nevertheless was a reminder of her mother’s disgrace, and her grandfather, the Earl of Barton, detested Isabella on sight. He chose to ignore her presence in his house and rarely spoke to her. Her two aunts, her mother’s older sisters, were married and occupied with their own families and expressed little interest in Isabella. Her grandfather’s sister, a formidable dowager who lived with the earl, was charged with supervising Isabella. The dowager, who was childless, resented Isabella and was not averse to showing her feelings.
    Although the earl was a wealthy man, he was not generous with his granddaughter, and Isabella lived a miserly existence. In time she learned to swallow her disappointment and accepted the fact that she would never have a season in London. She hoped for an opportunity to be introduced into local. society, but after accompanying the dowager to a few minor social