Love Drives In Read Online Free PDF

suddenly very conscious of how dowdy she looked in the plain brown dress she had chosen to wear for work.
    "Why don't you dine with me tonight?" he said. "Then we can continue our discussion, and between us we will invent marvellous things."
    "I'm sure you can invent marvellous things without me," she said, laughing because her heart was soaring with pleasure.
    "Thank you. I needed that encouragement."
    "Why, particularly?" Dorina enquired.
    "Because as hard as I try to keep in the lead, there are always men ready to race ahead of me."
    "Nonsense!" Dorina exclaimed merrily. "Your Lordship is so clever that it would be impossible for people to catch you up, let alone beat you to the post."
    The Earl laughed.
    "Now you are cheering me up and I insist that you dine with me tonight. I'll wait for you here while you change. We could go to the Ritz if you like."
    Plainly he meant to give her a treat, but Dorina said hurriedly,
    "I'd rather go somewhere quiet, so that we can talk uninterrupted. I'd be rather shy in the Ritz in case your society friends came in."
    Dorina was thinking that they might meet someone who would know her and give away her true identity.
    "Very well," he said. "I will take you to dinner to a place I discovered a long time ago. It's by the river, very quiet and we could talk in peace."
    "I would love to go," she said.
    She was determined to dress very demurely, but she had forgotten that her gowns came from Paris.
    Although she chose what appeared to be a very simple gown, but when she put it on, it still had that chic brilliance which the Parisian clothes always seemed to have.
    It was black with touches of gold, and it seemed to make her hair appear even more golden too.
    Also it made her skin look even paler and more beautiful than any other gown she might have worn. Because she thought it a mistake to wear any jewellery as she was merely a secretary, she only had two very small rings in her ears.
    But as they were diamonds set in gold, they made her look even more beautiful than she would have done without them.
    When she came down the stairs into the hall where the Earl was waiting for her, she would have been very foolish if she had not realised there was a glint in his eyes.
    There was also a look of surprise as he realised that she was like no other secretary. He became thoughtful.
    His carriage was outside.
    When they got into it and the footman shut the door, the Earl said,
    "I think it's time you told me the truth."
    "The – truth?"
    "Why are you trying to pass yourself off as an ordinary secretary, when you know very well that you are no such thing?"

 CHAPTER THREE
    Caught off-guard by the question, Dorina looked at him cautiously.
    "I'm sure I do not know why you should ask that," she said, assuming an offended tone, hoping that it would put him off. "Have you any complaints about my work?"
    "None at all, as you well know."
    "I'm a good secretary?"
    "You're an excellent secretary."
    "Then that's all there is to be said."
    "Oh no, it isn't" the Earl persisted. "My point is that you're too good. You're intelligent, you know the languages and you're obviously highly educated. Far from being an ordinary working girl, you're a lady."
    "An impoverished lady," she supplied quickly. "I have to earn my bread and I don't fancy being a governess or a school-mistress."
    "I thought impoverished ladies aimed for rich husbands," he observed.
    "Rich husbands require dowries," she pointed out.
    "Your brains and your beauty could be your dowry."
    "A nice compliment, but a man with a ramshackle castle cannot repair it with brains and beauty," she said, remembering one particular suitor.
    "Have you known many?" the Earl enquired with interest.
    "One hears things, travelling around," Dorina replied vaguely.
    She had made a bad slip, she realised, allowing him to know too much.
    "I'm sure one hears about men on the look-out for money," he replied. "But not every man is a fortune hunter. Some can afford to marry for