Lady Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page B

forward then stopped. “Not until you tell me how I fare. Talking to an invisible Lady Scandal—”
    “Lady Scandal? That’s what they’re calling me?” Of a certainty,
scandalous
fit how she felt, staring waist-high at his flexing thighs and…um,
things
centered above and between.
    “Aye, but at being denied your actual acquaintance, I’m feeling the bamboozled dupe, thinking I’m here on a sleeveless errand and nothing more.”
    When he looked back toward the door, as if contemplating escape, Juliet stammered, “Nay! I’m not trifling with you! To be sure, I find you intrepid and impudent and a host of other things I’m too much a lady to mention.”
    “That bad, eh?”
    “That good, I fear.”

    After emerging into the hallway and instructing a curious Jacks to fetch the tray, Olivia pulled the door shut behind her and turned to look at it, surprise making her reluctant to release the tarnished knob.
    Well. That had been unexpected. Leave her charge and bosom friend alone with a truthful thief? And a formidable, scowling specimen to boot.
    Peeling paint marked the stout door she hesitated to move from, the chipped antique white antiqued more by time than design. After it had collapsed off its hinges their first week in residence, Jacks and their remaining stable boy (who needed more than one when they no longer had any horseflesh that required stabling?) had rehung it to its current non-listing exactness.
    The exchange of indistinct murmurs reached her from the depths of the sitting room, one deep and just a shade from belligerent. The other carefree. Joyous almost.
    Recalling his sincere look, and the quickly masked vulnerability if she wasn’t mistaken, in Mr. Tanner’s gaze just before she acquiesced and quit the room convinced Olivia that Juliet was in no danger. Unlike that lout they’d interviewed just prior, the one who’d exhibited no ability to laugh at anything, much less at himself, she sensed Mr. Tanner possessed enough self-assurance and inherent composure that nothing unduly untoward would occur.
    Pah. Applicant twenty-three. To resort to violence and all because the ruffian took exception to being “duped by two bitches” or so he’d claimed when Juliet had the misfortune to sneeze, giving them both away. Crude churl! Thinking he could buy his way into respectability, as though money answered everything. Give her a man with a ready smile and a good appreciation of the absurd, a hard worker not afraid to get his hands dirty and able to laugh in the process. She’d take that over one with sovereigns to spare any day.
    Actually most days of late, Olivia would be grateful if only a man would look at her and really see her. It’d been a long, long time since a fellow had paid attention her direction with something akin to interest lighting his eyes. Companions were paid (or not paid, in her particular case) to blend into the background. To become invisible. Something she’d perhaps accomplished with too much zeal?
    She thought of the way Mr. Tanner had gazed at the screen. With hope. And determination.
    And that was before he’d ever clapped his peepers on the fair Lady Juliet. Aye, her mistress was in good hands at the moment. Safe, strong hands, if she didn’t miss her guess, and Olivia had always considered herself a fair judge of character.
    With a decisive nod, she steeled her resolve and abandoned her station. Duty called.
    Tell the final applicant he wasn’t needed? It was a task she dreaded. To be cast last and now discarded without an audience? What man would take kindly to such news?
    “Oh, bother it, Wivy!” Unconsciously, she used Juliet’s pet name. Perhaps in an attempt to shore up her own shaky confidence? Lord knew sweet Juliet didn’t lack in the courage department.
    Determined to see the onerous task over and quickly, Olivia swept down the long hallway, cringing when a bit of wall plaster dusted her dress when Jacks approached, his arms laden with refreshments, and