Mistletoe and Mischief Read Online Free PDF

instead.
    Louisa sighed. “I suppose so. But I do think passion is a necessary part of marriage. Don't you?”
    Charles felt a curious heat stealing up his neck. “Well, I suppose–of course– That is–”
    “I am still as determined as ever to marry,” Louisa continued, as if she had not heard him. “But now I have the greatest fear that I shall not manage it any time soon.”
    “Because the general is likely to turn up rough?”
    “No, not that. By now, he's probably thinking good riddance, and will marry me to the first gentleman he can get to accept me.” She shook her head with a wistful look, and her red curls shimmered about her face in the firelight. “I was thinking that it might take rather a long time to fall in love.”
    Charles coloured. This was not the sort of conversation he should be having with a young lady alone in an inn.
    He cleared his throat and put down his napkin.
    “Perhaps we should retire so we can get a brisk start in the morning,” he suggested. Then, purposely ignoring the last thing she had said, he offered, “I shall think about your dilemma and see what solution I can come up with to appease your guardians.”
    Louisa deserved whatever punishment they would choose to mete out, of course. Still, having heard her confession, Charles felt it would be a pity if she were made to suffer excessively. She seemed appropriately contrite, though why she was in such a hurry to marry he could not fathom.
    Some foolish notion, no doubt, which he would do better not to examine too closely.
    But her contrition, which had so recently moved him to sympathy, vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. She stood when he did and met him with a sunny face.
    “Do not concern yourself about the general,” she said, shaking her head. “I am not at all afraid of him–he is quite impressed by rank, you see. That is one reason I approached you, in particular. I heard one of the ostlers pointing you out as a marquess, and I thought that if you took me back to London, he would be more likely to forgive me sooner than if I had lit upon someone else.”
    Charles pressed his lips into a stern line, but Louisa merely batted her lashes at him.
    “I shall bid you good-night,” he said in an offended tone. “If you require anything to make yourself more comfortable, I hope you will avail yourself of it immediately.”
    “Why, thank you, Charles. That is most gracious of you. But of course I have already mentioned that I shall pay my debts on our return. As a matter of fact,” she continued, “I have made a few purchases from the innkeeper's wife. You will be pleased to know that I have acquired a toothbrush and some powder and a comb. I shall have to see what sort of nightdress she comes up with, but if it is neither too worn nor too outrageous, I just might beg it of her, also.”
    This catalogue of her comforts did nothing to soothe Charles's temper. He ushered her out the door with a curt good-night. Then he stayed a few minutes longer in the parlour just so they would not be seen ascending the staircase at the same time.
    He fumed for a bit, then decided this would only bring back his headache, and he was too grateful to have it gone to risk bringing on another. He stepped over to the fire and looked down at it. But the burning embers only served to remind him of Louisa's hair. Irritably, he thought that he might never enjoy a fire again without recalling his intrusive companion.
    Then, with his usual sense of justice, he remembered how miserable he had been all day with his headache, and how helpful Louisa had been in ridding him of it. He doubted whether a night at Lord Northridge's residence would have cured him quite so fast. He would have been obliged to stay up, drinking until all hours and playing cards out of courtesy to his host. Not the sort of quiet he needed after such a gruelling trip, but necessary for politeness' sake.
    Louisa, on the other hand, had exhorted him not to be too polite