Mad for Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

way, with a sweep of curling, sandy hair, and interesting, vivid blue eyes.  
    She would take it up with le bon Dieu at some time later—after God had graciously delivered her of this ruffian—that he should be so capricious as to make a terrible man so light and beautiful. So English, with his lean, intelligent face and long, aristocratic nose.  
    Which was a strange thing to say about a common housebreaker one was holding at the point of a pike. Which seemed not to be having quite the menacing effect she had intended. Perhaps she needed some show of strength.
    Her eyes slid back to the bell pull.
    “Ye needn’t bother.” He had followed her glance. “There’s no one there, is there? The house is empty. Except for ye, of course. But it was supposed to be empty while ye were all at the opening of the exhibition.”
    His casual frankness—not to mention his cheek—was astonishing. “How did you know this?”
    “It is my business to know,” he repeated. “But I clearly didn’t know enough—I didn’t know ye’d be here.” He cocked his head to the side as if he were trying to see her better. “I’m sorry if I frightened ye out of bed.”
    Mignon suddenly felt the stupidity of standing there in her thin white night gown, talking to a housebreaker—it was dashed difficult to look intimidating in linen so old it was worn to a transparent softness that was far too revealing.  
    She felt entirely exposed—the air of the salon prickled against her flesh despite the warmth from the fireplace, and she had to swallow over her dry mouth to say something, anything that would help her feel less vulnerable.
    But it was her gentlemanly thief who filled in the conversational gap. “I thought ye’d be at the opening with your father, ye see. Such a big event like that.” He chatted on, as if they were having a pleasant coze over tea, and not over a medieval bladed weapon. “Ye frightened me, too, ye ken. So we’re even.”
    Good Lord, but for an Englishman, he had altogether too much sang froid .  
    Mignon forced herself to find her voice. “I am not frightened. I am angry.” She firmed her hands on the handle. “How dare you break into our house.”
    “I am sorry,” he said again. But he didn’t look sorry at all—he was smiling at her in a way that made her think that she amused him far more than she intimidated. “But there’s really no need for threats of violence. Though ye don’t really look as if ye could stab me anyway.”
    “Of course I could. If I wanted to.”  
    Which she did not want. Not at all. She only wanted to defend herself, and the painting, and be left in peace.  
    But that brought up another consideration. “Oh, dear God. Are you armed?” she cried. She backed up a few paces herself, because her arms were quivering like the thin birch trees out in the square.
    “Heavens, no. I’m a gentleman.” He held open the lapels of his well-tailored coat—these English tailors had a way with cutting—to prove he had no weapon.
    “A gentleman?” She let her disbelief and disdain color her tone.
    “Of sorts—a gentleman thief.” He gave her that disarming smile again—the one that was clearly meant to make her go weak at the knees. “But still a gentleman. So as a gentleman, I’d like to ask ye if perhaps ye might put that thing down, or at least aim it a bit less directly as me.” His glance slid to the tip of the weapon. “It makes me a trifle nervous.”
    “Good.” She brandished the halberd more firmly. “You are supposed to be more than a trifle nervous.”
    “Well, that’s the criminal class for ye—no proper feelings,” he said with breezy insouciance as he gave her another smile, all dazzling apology and glossy charm.  
    So charming, so English.
    She needed to end this episode before she found herselfserving him tea and biscuits. “Well, since you have acted almost like a gentleman, then I suppose I might let you go.” She favored him with what she hoped was