Linda Needham Read Online Free PDF

small,” she said after a long moment that seemed to confound her. “But it’s clean, and has a number of amenities. A window that actually opens.”
    Jared had already memorized the room. “Yes, madam, and a miniature bed, a child’s chair, a table the size of a dinner plate—and no place to stand up straight.”
    “I’m sorry. But you’re very, very tall.” She was gazing up at him, her nostrils flaring slightly, breathing too sharply for a solidly married woman.
    She was smaller than he remembered from that long-ago, faraway afternoon: lean-limbed, her chin reaching only to the middle of his chest. Her hair was wilder, too, and lacked that huge-brimmed bonnet that hadhidden her face from the sun and him and all the other distractions swirling around them on the deck of the Cinnabar .
    Hiding her secrets even then.
    “So how much do you charge for all this luxury?” he said, catching his hand on a rafter.
    “Ten guineas for the weekend.”
    “Ten?” His neck aching from the angle, Jared sat down on the rail at the foot of the bed. “Holy hell, madam, ten guineas will buy me a year’s membership in any one of London’s finest clubs.”
    “Then perhaps you should go back to London, Colonel Huddleswell, if you’re not happy with the price of your room at Badger’s Run. Though I doubt you’ll find much sport in fishing the Thames off London Bridge, and nothing I would care to eat.”
    “Your other guests—are they paying as much as you’re charging me?”
    “Eleven guineas.” She took the two steps to the low, little window and closed the curtains. “After all, I couldn’t very well charge you the entire fee. Not with your having to stay here in this room.”
    “How very considerate of you. What do I get for my money, besides this room?”
    “The tournament, of course. It’s the reason you’re here, after all.”
    “That’s all? No meals?”
    “A reasonable extra charge.”
    “And drinks? What about that expensive cellar you were emptying?”
    “McHugh will be happy to keep a ticket for you.”
    Gad, at least ten pounds a head lodging, and allthose meals and pints. The woman must be pulling in money hand by fist. And doing what with it? Buying herself gew-gaws? Jewelry? Gifts for her lover?
    That thought hit him like a cold slap.
    “If you’ll tell me where your luggage is, Colonel, I’ll have McHugh bring it up for you.”
    Hell. Pembridge had sent his cases ahead to Hawkesly Hall. He hadn’t anything in his satchel but papers, and he couldn’t very well send up to the hall for his luggage. Might not even be anyone there to receive it.
    Well, he was already knee-deep in this messy story—why not jump in all the way?
    “What do you mean, my luggage?” He narrowed his eyes at her, hopefully setting her off guard. “Aren’t my cases here already?”
    She straightened from him and frowned, her mind clearly racing backward through her busy day. “Already? What do you mean?”
    Good! He had her on the run this time, pressed a bit harder with his wild story.
    “I mean a portmanteau, two trunks, a half dozen cases. I sent my luggage ahead last night so that it would be waiting for me here. As well as my fishing…um”—blast, what was the stuff called?—“my gear…things. Poles and, um, whatnot.”
    Instead of cowering, his wife merely stood her ground and shook her head. “Well, I assure you, Colonel Huddleswell, that nothing of yours arrived ahead of you. I would have been informed by the staff and then the lot would have been safely stored.”
    “Unless it was stolen—”
    Her cheeks flamed. “I do not employ thieves. How dare you suggest such a thing.”
    Possibly because you have seized my hunting lodge for your own purposes, without my permission.
    “Because, madam, my bags are missing as well as my prize-winning fishing equipment, leaving me without even a change of clothes.”
    She touched her fingertip to the very center of her lips, surveying him. Then she sighed and