If You Give a Girl a Viscount Read Online Free PDF

corner of his mind was still hale enough to find her lack of artifice amusing.
    “Brandy would do better,” he said.
    “We’ve none of that. We have some whisky, however. But”—she paused—“are you sure you need … more ? You don’t look as if more would help. Perhaps less would be better. Or none.” She inhaled. “None is what I meant, actually.”
    “There’s a tipping point, you know,” he told her. “Forbearance would be counterproductive at this stage. It might lead to a massive headache.”
    “You don’t have one already?”
    Devil take it, must she remind him?
    He’d try for a new subject. “It was a long trek up the hill from your village. Glen Dewey must be the remotest outpost in the Highlands. I had to walk the last three miles to get to it from the main road.”
    “Yes, we’re isolated here.” Miss Montgomery didn’t sound at all apologetic. “I’m shocked you found us at all.”
    She smiled at him, ignoring the fact that he refused to smile back at her.
    “You’re in pain,” Miss Montgomery remarked. “Please, my lord. Do sit down and make yourself comfortable. I promise I won’t—”
    “Mention money?” He lowered himself onto an ancient sofa.
    She winced. “Yes. At least for—at least until you feel better .”
    He longed to tell her that his stomach ached from lack of food, too much drink, and not enough sleep. He’d also love to confess that he’d played cards all night with a roomful of crofters just to get here today. He’d lost his last gold button and then—
    His lucky penny, the one responsible for all his good fortune … the one he’d hidden from his friends when they’d taken his last farthing. He hadn’t had any compunctions about concealing it—it wasn’t as if he were ever going to spend it.
    It was merely a talisman, the lucky penny his Scottish grandfather had given him when he was but six years old. Granddad had said, “Here’s your lucky penny. What you see is what you get. Dinnae forget that, laddie.”
    Charlie remembered clutching the penny in his chubby fist and crying when his mother had tried to remove it that night at dinner. And so he’d stowed it away in his pocket.
    Every day.
    For the rest of his life.
    Through Eton, Oxford, Granddad’s funeral, all the weddings of Charlie’s friends, and every purchase of castle or property on behalf of his family, he’d had the lucky penny on his person. He was convinced that it had everything to do with the fact that whatever business prospect he touched turned to gold.
    But by some odd chance, the penny had appeared on the faded green baize table last night. Had one of the barmaids removed it from his pocket? He still didn’t know. The Highland whisky had been flowing freely and—
    The next thing he’d known, the lucky penny had been won.
    Won away from him by a toothless old man who’d roared at Charlie when he’d tried to win it back, “Stay away! It’s mah lucky penny noo!” And had disappeared into the eerie white night of the Highland summer.
    Charlie had watched him disappear around the stables and let him go. At the time, he could barely stand straight as it was.
    Things had gone rapidly downhill. First, there’d been the fight over—nothing. He’d been in many of those the last month. People in dire straits tended to be in bad moods when they were hungry or looking for a place to sleep. And then after his black eye, a large-eared drover had required him to sing “Will Ye Go, Lassie?” on the bartop before he’d allow Charlie on the back of his wagon. He’d been dumped at the nearest market town and fortunately picked up by one of several coaches filled with anglers heading north of Glen Dewey to the village of Brawton.
    Miss Montgomery bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I’m being a terrible hostess.” She ran a hand through her curls. “Let me get you a poultice for that eye.”
    “No, thank you.” Charlie told himself that he was being curt, yet he couldn’t help making