Lady Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

Lady Ross's daughters will be there, and I know they would enjoy seeing you."
    Before Christina could shout out a protest, Michael pushed himself up from his chair and said hastily, "Excellent! I am sure you ladies will have a jolly morning, then." He kissed his mother's and sister's cheeks, and managed to make his way to the library with scarcely a limp.
    Once there, in his inner sanctuary where the ladies seldom appeared, he dropped into one of the overstuffed chairs by the fireplace. The ache in his leg eased a bit when he stretched it out on the footstool, rubbing at the knotted muscle over the ill-healed thighbone.
    After the crash, the doctors said at first that he would lose the leg. Then that he would never walk again. But he determined to prove them wrong. He was Amelia's only parent now, and he had to be strong and whole for her, even when his spirit longed to sink into black grief. So he worked hard, secretly at night in his lonely room, doing leg lifts and sit-ups and lunges until he wanted to shout out with the sweating agony of it all. Then he walked, across the bedroom, out the door, down the stairs. By the time they came to Thorn Hill, he could ride and run and even wield a scythe in the fields like a peasant farmer.
    His leg never had fully healed, though, and still sometimes sent out obnoxious reminders of that fact. It had been paining him more of late, but he always managed to hide it well enough in their small family group.
    But would he always be able to when Mrs. Brown came into their midst?
    Mrs. Kate Brown. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, thinking about the Italian lady with the resolutely English name. A young widow, well versed in languages. She sounded rather—intriguing.
    Not like Christina's last governess, the dry, gray-haired Miss Primm, who so admirably lived up to her name. He wondered what Mrs. Brown looked like. Dark-eyed, like the Italian signorinas he had met in Florence as a young man? Small, slim, with fire in their hearts and high, sweet bosoms that swelled from their silken bodices...
    Michael laughed at himself and his wild fantasies. Mrs. Brown could be as plain as a mud hen or as glorious as Helen of Troy—it would make no difference. He was no longer the wild youth who drank rough red wine in Florence tavernas and made love to ebony-haired courtesans on rooftops overlooking the Arno. He was a respectable country gentleman, a father. No signorina would look twice at him now. And Mrs. Brown was not coming to Thorn Hill to be anything to him. She was coming to help his family, and for that he would be grateful to her.
    Grateful—no more. No female servant had ever had to fear his advances beneath his roof, and he would not start now. Even if this Mrs. Brown turned out to hold all the languorous warmth of the Italian sun in her eyes.
    A soft knock sounded at the library door, bringing him abruptly back to the present moment.
    "Come in," he called, sitting up straight in his chair. He carefully swung his leg back to the floor, trying his damnedest to seem casual and relaxed.
    Christina came into the room, Michael's tweed riding coat folded over her arm. Her hair was brushed and tied back neatly with a green ribbon that matched her eyes, but she still wore the gown with the muddy hem.
    Michael smiled at her, thinking how very pretty she had become. And how wild and reckless, wandering the moors at all hours. Hopefully, this Mrs. Brown could help her. London Society would eat her alive if she kept on as she had.
    She perched on the arm of his chair. "I brought your warm coat, Michael. It is a bit windy out there this morning. I also brought this." She pulled out a small, clear glass jar, filled with some murky yellow green substance. "It is an herbal salve I've been experimenting with, using herbs I dug up on the moors. Mrs. Sowerby says they do wonders. I thought you might try it on your leg, just as part of my experiment."
    Michael squeezed her hand in his, grateful for