Reckless Viscount Read Online Free PDF Page A

find amenable. I insist upon approving any match.”
    “Yes, Father,” Abbigael responded, knowing he expected her agreement on that point at least. As if she would have the courage and desire to elope with some gentleman of whom he wouldn’t approve.
    She smiled at the ridiculous thought. She was likely to be far more discerning than even her very cautious father.
    Seeing her smile, Sir Felix started to smile in return, then he glanced to the side and his entire demeanor altered in an instant. His hands dropped from her shoulders and he took a step back. Abbigael watched as he suddenly found reason to look anywhere other than directly at her.
    Her spine stiffened so severely her muscles ached in protest, but she kept her chin up and refused to lower her gaze. She didn’t know what had ruined the brief moment when she had felt as if they were father and daughter again, but the distance he put between them was familiar enough.
    Sir Felix crossed the room to her door, turning back to face her just as he opened it.
    “You will do well here, Abby,” he repeated, as if he were trying to convince himself of that fact. His brown eyes swept from her face to the jewelry beside her then back to her face. “Send for me if you need me,” he added, and then he was gone.
    Abbigael stood without moving, the click of her door echoing through her mind. It had been this way with her father since her mother died more than seven years ago.
    That was when everything in her world had been torn apart.
    Abbigael had been alone when she got the news of her mother’s death. One of her father’s tenant farmers had run up to the house shouting about an overturned phaeton and the lady lying in the road. Her mother walked that lane every day. Filled with fear so great it blocked out all other thought, Abbigael had started running as fast as her young legs could carry her. She ran with her heart blocking her breath until she came around the bend in the road and saw the figure dressed in pale blue motionless in the dirt.
    In an instant, it felt as if the sun had been ripped from her existence. Gone in a flash was everything warm and bright and loving. She had been thirteen and had grown up as close to her mother as any daughter could be. She didn’t need to be told her mother was dead. She knew it the second she saw her lying in the road, perhaps even before. And in that moment, her entire world became a drowning blackness that covered her from all directions and suffocated all remembrance of joy. She distanced her mind from the painful reality and effectively lost connection to anything that existed beyond the fury and pain and loss that stretched her life into one long dark night.
    When Abbigael finally came through her grief-stricken oblivion, it was to the realization that her father had sent her to live with her mother’s family in the far north. Initially, Abbigael was relieved, assuming her father would be back for her soon enough. Being around the people who had known her mother so well made her feel more connected to her memory. But it didn’t take long for her to realize that the people who cared for her kept a certain distance and often looked at her with fear, crossing themselves when they passed by.
    After a couple days she built up the courage to ask her mother’s aunt, the lady who seemed the least bothered by her presence, why she was treated so strangely. That was when she found out that although inside she had been grieving in a silent blackened void, externally she had been anything but.
    Her aunt told her of how she had screamed for hours straight after seeing her mother’s lifeless body. Screamed until the only sound that came from her throat was a wretched croaking groan. No one had been able to comfort her. Even her father, when he had gotten home, had met with flailing limbs and furious snarls. After weeks went by and she still refused to eat anything that wasn’t forced upon her, didn’t sleep beyond short