Scandalous Innocent Read Online Free PDF Page A

were redirected to themselves, to the straightening of wigs and the adjusting of lace cravats. Fending off Phoebe’s fists, their hands dropped away, prinking and pulling at coats, and then without a word they disappeared through the door and down the wooden steps.
    Phoebe felt her face go into a kind of spasm as she tried to regain control, her gasps saying more than words about the distress she was suffering. She realised Sir Leo was watching her and, once again, found herself caring what he must be thinking, and hating herself for caring. Of all people, why must it be him?
    He glanced towards the two departing figures, then back at her, but came no closer. ‘Did they harm ye?’ he said, softly.
    Placing a hand to her forehead, she felt the dampness there. ‘No,’ she said.
    ‘The Duchess is not here yet. There’s no great hurry.’
    She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sniffed. ‘Oh, my cuff!’ she whispered. ‘The lace…’tis torn. Oh!’
    ‘Here, let me see. Lift your arm. Hold still.’
    Obediently, she held her arm up while he tucked the loose piece between two pins. Her arms were mottled with an angry pink and her breathing would not settle. ‘I suppose you think I asked for it, don’t you?’ she said, firing up at his silence. ‘Well, I didn’t. I came up here to see…to look…oh, why should I care what you think? You’ll think the worst, won’t you? You always did.’
    ‘You’d hardly be so upset if you’d asked for it, would you? I’m not blind, lass. I can see what happened. I was following.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Why? Huh! Those two are as daft as balm-cakes, that’s why. I could see how hard they tried over dinner, and they don’t take women anywhere to look at the view.’
    ‘So I suppose I should have known that,’ she replied sharply.
    ‘Hush, lass. Calm down. Do you want to put your lace collar straight before we go? It might be best.’
    Glancing from shoulder to shoulder, she tried, but without a mirror could not be sure it was level. ‘Is that it?’ she said. ‘I can’t see.’
    He smiled, and without asking permission reached out to hitch up one side by a fraction and then, as if he’d done this kind of thing a dozen times, tied the ribbon that held her sleeve to her bodice at the shoulder. ‘I don’t know how you managed to clout either of them with your arms pinioned to your sides by this lot,’ he said. ‘It’s a wonder you didn’t burst a seam. There. Ready now?’
    She nodded. ‘Thank you.’
    ‘No charge,’ he said with a smile.
    He went first, helping her down the steps and strolling with her by his side along the river bank, neither of them speaking. But nor did he have the slightest notion that Phoebe could still feel the warm touch of his fingers upon her shoulder where he’d adjusted her collar. And he had called her lass, as if he didn’t care whether she hated him or not.

Chapter Two
    T heir unhurried walk gave Phoebe time to notice that they both wore green, the colour of hope. How inappropriate, she thought. Sir Leo’s green was that of pine forests with patterns of acanthus leaves woven into the brocade. It must have cost him a fortune, with its clusters of satin ribbons and gold buttons. She noticed also that he did not wear the long vest that was the latest fashion, but a short jacket that showed a lot of white linen shirt around his middle, and more shirt showed where his buttons were undone, still more below the short jacket sleeves. Her eyes were drawn to one hand showing beneath the lace cuff, its thumb idly hooked into the gold-and-green sword-sash slung across him. No man would be correctly attired without his sword.
    She had heard of his prowess with the rapier long before she saw him for the first time. Such men were a breed apart and confident to the point of arrogance, especially a Scot whose arrogance would have been fed to him with his mother’s milk. Soon after his notorioius duel with Sir Piers Kelloway and the