Shattered Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

dipped
his quill into the pot next to his elbow.
    “ Write your name and address on this.” He slid the parchment
and quill across the desk and settled back in his chair.
    A low
groan nearly escaped him when she bent over the desk, and the lush
swell of her breasts pushed tantalisingly against the tight bodice
she wore. By the time she had finished writing, he had to wipe a
thin film of sweat off his brow. When she eventually resumed her
seat, he was silently praying that he wouldn’t embarrass
himself.
    What the hell? Get your mind on the latest news, he sternly chastised himself as he tried to keep
his eyes off her very feminine curves.
    “ Thank you,” he croaked huskily when she had finished, and
leaned back to compare her handwriting to the writing on the fake
‘offer letter’.
    Tilly
had no idea what was going on, but didn’t like the way he studied
the writing on both documents closely. She knew instinctively that
something wasn’t right. From the look of his flushed face, and the
faint tremor in his hand, he was furious about
something.
    She
hadn’t said more than a few words to him, so what could he be so
angry about?
    She
frowned as she waited for him to speak, and knew instinctively that
she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. Sure enough, when he
spoke, her world crumbled at her feet.
    “ I am afraid, Miss Fenton -” he looked up at her frankly, “-
Tilly, that you have been lured here under false pretences. I am
afraid that there is no job.”
    He tried
to soften his words; he really did, but could find no other way to
impart the bad news.
    If at
all possible, she grew even paler, and he wondered briefly if she
was going to faint on him.
    Tilly
stared at him in horror. It took her a moment to absorb what he had
just said.
    “ But it’s there, on the letter,” she stammered, and she
pointed to the parchment he held. “It says that I have been given
the job as a housekeeper, and should come here at my earliest
convenience,” she finished weakly.
    Harry
was already shaking his head. “I am sorry, but I wouldn’t engage
any housekeeper I didn’t meet with first. No employer would,” he
assured her gently. “Most employees have interviews first, and are
then offered a job.”
    He
wondered if she even had any kind of previous employment
experience.
    “ You seem too young to be a housekeeper,” he declared
thoughtfully when it appeared that she was struggling to keep her
tears at bay.
    Tilly
tipped her chin up. “I have been a housekeeper to Lady Attingham,
at Attingham House, in Lincolnshire, for the last three years,” she
replied proudly.
    “ How old are you?” Harry challenged.
    He quite
liked the rather spiky side to her. It hinted that there was far
more to this young woman than timidity and a life of service. She
had spirit and backbone, and he liked that in her, especially right
now because that brief flash of fire in her eyes had helped to
eradicate the worst of the paleness in her cheeks.
    Tilly
frowned at him. She wanted to tell him that it was rude for a
gentleman to ask a lady her age, but reminded herself that she
needed this man to employ her in some way, so couldn’t afford to
offend him.
    “ I am five and twenty,” she replied firmly. The ‘why’ remained
unspoken, but hovered in the air between them.
    “ Why are you looking for a new job?”
    Although
a part of him wanted to hustle her out of the door before he did
something disgraceful, he was intrigued, and just had to know more
of her story.
    Who was
she? Why was someone as beautiful as Tilly not married with a
house-full of children?
    “ My previous employer passed away suddenly. One of her friends
suggested that I apply for the position of housekeeper
here.”
    Harry
thought about the advertisement they had put into the local
broadsheet in Tooting Mallow to lure the Dandridges’ to work at the
Rectory. Had the woman seen it, and recommended it to Tilly, to try
to help her? Was this really an