Romancing the Rogue Read Online Free PDF

waved her rag to halt a team of footmen transporting a rolled rug. “No, that’s the Axminster. It goes in the music room with the seventeenth cent—” She pursed her lips at the footmen’s blank expressions. “The scarlet rug. It lies perpendicular to the red rug. Adjacent? Oh for heaven’s sake, there’s a square of darkened flooring where it belongs. And the Tabriz Persian, the gold one, goes here.” She sighed, sending an escaped lock of hair flying.
    Wilhelm wanted to touch it, that unruly piece of hair, to wrap it around his finger.
    The footmen each answered with a respectful, “Yes, ma’am,” as though she were mistress of Rougemont. Wilhelm had always thought authority was ninety percent bluster, and Rosalie had it in spades.
    “How can you not like her, Aunt? She knows her rugs.”
    “I see no humor here, Wilhelm Montegue. What are your intentions? And try not to use dockyard language.”
    Wilhelm considered shocking her just for sport then decided he wanted to be taken seriously. “I mean to have her, of course.”
    “To what end? Until you tire of her and send her away with your bastard? Heaven knows you can afford a dozen, but I always imagined more honor in your character.”
    “Imagined? Dear Aunt, you cut me to the quick.”
    “Leave her be, Wilhelm.”
    “I don’t think I can help it.”
    “After all this time? You choose a domestic? When you have rejected the Princess of Belgium?” She dabbed her forehead with a lace-edged handkerchief and tucked it into her sleeve. “Think of the scandal. Think of your duty. ”
    “Princess Astrid rejected me, not the other way around.” He tore his gaze from Rosalie to smile at his feisty little aunt. “And now you’ve persuaded me to be contrary, solely for using that D-word . ”
    She twirled her hand at him, plainly struggling to maintain her disapproving glare. Inexplicably Aunt Louisa liked him, no matter how poor his behavior. “You cannot carry on this way when the clock is ticking. What will become of your title? Surely your pride will not allow you to be the one Montegue since Cromwell who fails to pass the earldom to his son?”
    “Blame Roderick for dying. I should never have had the title in the first place.”
    Aunt Louisa lowered her voice, as though the ghosts couldn’t hear if she whispered, “I bless the nitwit for dying. It was the one sensible thing your brother did, leaving the title to you.”
    “Now you are being sentimental, Aunt. Stop or I may weep on your shoulder.”
    “Wicked man.” She rapped him on the head with her fan. He was surprised she could reach. “I cannot dissuade you?”
    “Not a chance. Have you ever seen a woman more lovely, more full of fire?”
    “By the dozen.” Her tone betrayed her true answer: Sadly, no.
    Wilhelm had truly found a diamond in the rough. “Look on the bright side…”
    “There is one?”
    Yes — for you, because I doubt she will even want me in the first place. “She is not American,” he said instead, resurrecting their most volatile argument.
    So many in their acquaintance had made marriage alliances that amounted to trading old English titles for new American money. Aunt Louisa thought it a sign of the apocalypse, but apparently she was too upset to take the bait.
    Then he had an idea. No reason he should let Aunt Louisa’s talent go to waste. “I wonder if you might help me. And in turn, I promise I won’t lay her out on a silver platter dressed only in grapes when I next host a ball.”
    They exchanged smirks. Wilhelm never hosted balls.
    “ Mercy . Anything for you, Wilhelm.” However grudgingly, she meant it.
    “Find out who she is.”
    ~~~~
    Mr. Cox finally sent a letter. She pretended not to care when a curious Mrs. Abbott handed her the envelope, but in private, Sophia tore it open and unfolded the paper with fumbling hands. Clever Mr. Cox, her solicitor, who had found her the position at Rougemont with the help of the prankish and brazen Lady Lambrick,