Merline Lovelace Read Online Free PDF

make arrangements to send her home?”
    “Of course! Bring her here at once.”
    “Thank you, I will. But first…” His glance went to the blonde surrounded by scarlet and blue uniforms. “Lady Barbara, may I beg a few words of private speech with you?”
    His fellow officers responded to his request with a round of protests. Nate Prescott led the chorus.
    “I say, Morgan! You’ll have the lady to yourself when you escort her to your parents’ place tomorrow. Surely you wouldn’t be such a dog as to snatch her from us tonight!”
    “It’s about the journey that I must speak to her,” Zach replied. “If she can tear herself away from your company, that is.”
    “I shall contrive to do so,” she returned coolly before turning a brilliant smile on Nate. “You will remember you’re taking me in to dinner this evening, will you not?”
    “How could I forget!” He threw a smug glance Zach’s way. “Too bad you won’t be able to join us, old fellow. I know you don’t have a decent frock coat here in camp. Although…” His eyes narrowed. “I must say, that shirt looks as though my tailor might have sewn it.”
    “He did.”
    Ignoring his friend’s sputter of indignation, Zach escorted the lady to the small back parlor Sallie indicated they might use. It was crammed with the bedrolls and backpacks of the visitors she could not squeeze into the rooms upstairs, but otherwise unoccupied.
    With a show of bored disinterest, the Englishwoman twitched the fringe of her shawl into place. Zach realized he’d have to grovel like a mud-bellied carp before he was restored to her good graces. If then!
    “I must offer an apology for my earlier behavior,” he began.
    “Save your breath, sir. I consider your conduct inexcusable.”
    “All I can do is plead a misplaced sense of the ridiculous and beg you to forgive me for funning the way I did.”
    “Let me be sure I understand you. You beg pardon for allowing me to think you the oafish boor, but not for kissing me in that detestable way?”
    One corner of his mouth kicked up. “I’ll be sorry indeed if you found that kiss detestable. I, for one, found it most enjoyable.”
    Barbara didn’t doubt it for a moment. He’d molded his mouth to hers with an expertise that bespoke long practice. Seeing him now with his prickly whiskers gone, most of the dirt scrubbed from his person, and that roguish smile in his eyes, she suspected more than one local miss had allowed him to steal a kiss.
    Well, Barbara was no local miss. Necessity had taught her to select with great care the men she allowed close to her. She didn’t base her choice on their rakish smiles or, as in this case, admittedly splendid physique, but rather on their bank accounts and family holdings. And this man’s family holdings must of necessity be the sole focus of her interest.
    “May I have your assurances you’ll refrain from such funning during our journey to your parents’ home?”
    “You may.” In direct counterpoint to her coolness, the smile in his eyes deepened. “But I give them reluctantly.”
    “Very well. If it is convenient for you, perhaps we could depart after breakfast tomorrow.”
    “It’s quite convenient, but curiosity compels me to ask why you want to go to Morgan’s Falls.”
    Curiosity and a son’s desire to protect his dam, Barbara guessed.
    “My business is with your mother,” she said with a shrug. “I will discuss it with her.”
    The smile left his eyes. Without moving so much as a muscle, he went from affable to hard and still and somewhat dangerous. She guessed this must be the face he showed his men.
    Or his enemies.
    “I’ll escort you to Morgan’s Falls,” he said slowly. “But only if you give me assurances you mean no harm to me or mine.”
    “I resent both your tone and your inference, but if it will ease your mind, I will assure you I mean no harm to you or yours.”
    The lie came easily, like the many others Barbara had uttered over the years. And