In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) Read Online Free PDF

cautioned.
    “Hush, Kathleen. I have a perfectly good mind and I believe I’m allowed to express it, especially to an employee. And that is what you are, Captain. You’d best remember it.”
    Louisa expected a blast back, rather like what happened to her unlucky car. But the man’s lips thinned and he said nothing.
    There was that devilish silence again. “I’ve offered you help, and you have mocked me. That is not very gentlemanly of you.”
    “Ah, but your maid, Kathleen—Carmichael, isn’t it?—is right, Miss Stratton. I’m no gentleman. And I have no idea what my arse looks like, but you are both welcome to inspect it at any time you wish. I am, after all, your employee.”
    Kathleen choked beside her. Heavens, the man had the ears of an elephant. Louisa would have to be careful in the future.
    They were getting off to a very bad start. She should have been patient and waited to meet him at Mount Street over the tea tray, but patience was not her virtue. She’d exhausted it long ago.
    Louisa was not going to let him goad her, however. “I shall keep that in mind. While we’re on the subject, I won’t return the favor. You are to keep your eyes and your hands to yourself unless I instruct you to show some minor affection in front of my family. Maximillian would never be indiscreet in public.
He
is a consummate gentleman.”
    “My eyes?”
    The man could do more with two words than anyone she’d ever met.
    “You know what I mean. I am truly sorry for your infirmity. How did you lose your eye?”
    “I didn’t lose it. It’s still there.”
    “Well then,” she said in somewhat confused triumph, “I was right.”
    “I’m sure you always are, Miss Stratton. You’re paying me well enough to say so.”
    “I don’t expect you to always agree with me,” Louisa said, beginning to have an odd feeling in her chest. “You’re a man.”
    “I am.”
    Well, that was that. Louisa would have to adjust to the silence all the way to Mount Street. She, Louisa Elizabeth Stratton, could not think of another thing to say.
    * * *
    C harles did not think he’d be able to go through with this, money be damned. The girl was impossible, bossy, a man-hater, and too pretty for her own good. Now that he’d gotten a better look at her—with his
one
eye—he could see that her mouth was too wide (
“The better to nag you with, my dear”
) and there was a witch’s mark in its left corner, but she was still very attractive. Every time her fur coat flapped open, he could see her narrow waist and the hourglass shape of the rest of her that seemed to be all the rage. He wondered if she could breathe through her corset, then decided she’d had plenty of air with which to harangue him thus far.
    He felt a little like a prize bull at the fair, only he wouldn’t be getting the bonus of getting cozy with the cows once he’d won his blue ribbon. A day under Mrs. Evensong’s roof had not been sufficient to rope him back into civilization, and he was making a hash of this husband business already, unless they were to be a bickering couple.
    That
he thought he could manage. This Maximillian sounded like a moony moron that bore no resemblance to anyone he knew, and Rosemont was bound to be perfectly awful. He’d probably break the china and piss in a corner before it was all done.
    If only he’d found the courage to kill himself the other night, he would not be bumping knees in this poorly sprung carriage with Louisa Stratton and her outspoken maid. He’d always had a passion for redheads, when he’d felt passion. But somehow Kathleen’s blond mistress appealed much more to his lower nature.
    Charles wondered what the heiress would look like when her corset was unstrung. He pictured bright pink lines on milk-white skin, bountiful breasts bursting into his rough hands, her waist as small as a child’s.
    And then he saw himself lacing her back up, pulling the strings so tight she could barely move. Barely breathe. He would