Kiss the Earl Read Online Free PDF

sad tone of her voice. He’d expected her to lose all the beauty he’d just found in her, but she did not. If anything, the sight of her beautiful lips turned down at their corners made him want to gather her close in comfort.
    What the devil? Had he gone mad?
    â€œI am afraid they are not. I must apologize sincerely for mistaking you for my friend Miss Brownstone. It was ill done of me. But Miss Briley, if your only London acquaintance is a duchess, I must ask you: are you a lady’s maid?”
    She shook her head, stumbling again. With a heavy breath, Patrick grabbed her hand and pulled it through his arm. She started and began to yank her hand away, but he only tightened his grip. “Please allow me to assist you, or I fear you shall pull up lame. You do not wish to be carried to the Hart, do you?”
    Her cheeks fired with color. “No.”
    â€œThen permit me this small boon. Your slippers are unsuitable for this terrain.”
    â€œDon’t I know it,” she mumbled. Her words and phrases were so odd, and she had such a strange way of delivering them. Her accent was as strange as any he’d ever heard.
    He quite liked it.
    â€œYou have not yet answered my question, Miss Briley. Are you a maid? Perhaps you worked in the former Lady Chesterfield’s household?”
    â€œNo, I’m not a maid. I only met Lady Chesterfield once, when I came to get a friend who was staying with her.” She cursed as her ankle wobbled again. Patrick’s eyebrows raised at the colorful language coming from the lady. Or was she a lady at all? Perhaps a member of the demi-monde ? That would explain her lack of connections, her lack of chaperone on the street this evening, and her strange, revealing dress. She was certainly beautiful enough to be successful, if that was indeed her chosen profession. He decided to pursue that line of thought.
    â€œI see. And this friend, does she share your profession?”
    Miss Briley looked at him with an eyebrow arched high. “I haven’t told you what my profession is.”
    â€œNo, indeed you have not. I merely presumed.”
    â€œPresumed what?”
    Caught like a fox run to ground. Patrick cleared his throat, staring straight ahead, down the moonlit road. “It seemed rather clear from your dress that you perhaps were a gentleman’s particular companion.”
    â€œA gentleman’s…” Her voice trailed off, and she stopped dead, dropping his arm as if it were a snake. “You think I’m some man’s mistress?”
    â€œI meant no offense. Do you deny it?”
    â€œOf course I freaking deny it! Good God, this is a nightmare.” She covered her face with her hands, taking several deep breaths, though whether to keep from crying or screaming, he could not know.
    â€œIf you would but simply tell me who you are and where you hail from, I would not be forced into assuming things about your person.”
    His completely logical and calm statement was met with the blackest rage he’d seen since Amelia’s father had been told of his daughter’s tendre for the vicar. Miss Briley’s hands fell from her face and fisted by her sides, her cloak caught up in a grip so tight it shook. Her brows were in a straight line over those beautiful, shining eyes, and her full lips were pursed tight.
    â€œI don’t remember pointing a gun at your head and forcing you to think anything about me, Mister Meadowfair.”
    â€œ Earl of Fairhaven,” he corrected automatically. “Or Lord Fairhaven, or to be quite honest, my lord would be the best form for this particular—”
    He stopped speaking when her blue fingernail jabbed into his chest. Perhaps that had not been the best time for a lesson in the etiquette of proper address.
    â€œI don’t give a crap what I’m supposed to call you. How dare you think you know anything about me? God, Mrs. Knightsbridge, if I ever get back home,