Taming Rafe Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Oh, dear,” she repeated.
    A painful-looking scar ran from the corner of his left eye, deepened across his high cheekbone, and then trailed off at the line of his jaw. Honey-colored hair partially covered one closed eye, but the scar, together with his arched brows and tanned skin, made him look quite piratical. And exceedingly handsome.
    “Do you think he’s a pirate?” May asked, apparently sharing her assessment. She leaned over her sister’s shoulder to get a look at their captive.
    “He’s a long way from water, if he is,” Felicity returned slowly, wrapping the remaining rope around his broad chest and hard, flat stomach as tightly as she could and knotting it.
    “Perhaps he’s lost, then.”
    Somehow Felicity didn’t think so. “Perhaps.”
    His eyes fluttered and opened, light green and startled. She gasped and sat backward. “Don’t try anything!” she warned harshly, grabbing for the kettle again.
    The eyes tried to focus on her, closed, then opened again and rolled back into his head. “Damned female,” he muttered in a slurred voice, shutting them again.
    “He’s drunk,” May declared.
    “I don’t smell liquor on him,” Felicity disagreed. “We did hit him rather hard, dear.”
    “Do you think we broke his head?”
    “We might have.”
    “Cracked my skull, you damned assassin,” his deep voice uttered again.
    “Watch your language, sir,” Felicity ordered. “There’s a child present.”
    The eyes opened again, crossed groggily, then focused on her. “You’re no blasted child,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.
    “I am,” May stated, leaning over him again. “Are you a pirate?”
    “No.”
    “May, keep away. He’s dangerous.”
    “Am not,” he muttered. He made as if to sit up, then raised his head a little to look at his bound chest and legs. “Damn,” he repeated, and lay back again, banging his head. “Oh, God! You’ve killed me, I think.”
    “We have not. And we’re going to get the constable,” Felicity warned him.
    “Good.”
    That stopped her. “Why is it a good thing that we should have you arrested?” He was definitely piratical, especially with the thin trickle of blood running past one ear. She swallowed, her mouth dry. Good Lord, she’d captured some sort of splendidly handsome pirate king, and he’d meant to drag her off to the Spanish Main, or somewhere.
    “Because I’ll have you arrested,” he managed. “Thief.”
    “I am not a thief!” she declared indignantly. “You are a…a rogue and an attacker of helpless women!”
    “Helpless, my ass.”
    Felicity banged the kettle on the floor beside him. “Your language, sir!” she reminded him.
    He flinched. “Fine. I’ll watch my language, Miss Helpless.”
    She attempted to ignore the cynicism dripping from his voice. “That’s right. Now what do you think you were doing?”
    The pirate blinked fuzzily again. “Is this,” he said, enunciating each word as though to be certain he got them out correctly, “is this Forton Hall, in Cheshire?”
    For a moment she looked at him. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
    “Ha! You’re a damned—you’re a trespasser!”
    “ What? You’re the one who broke into my home and attacked me!”
    “Thought you were a man. Besides, it’s my house.”
    “He’s daft,” May said.
    “Am not. Let me up.”
    “Absolutely not, sir. For all I know, you’re a mad, knife-wielding murderer.”
    “Listen, Miss Helpless. I am Rafael Bancroft,and Forton Hall is mine. I can prove it.”
    Felicity rolled her eyes at his lunacy. “Forton Hall belongs to me, my sister, and my brother.”
    The light green gaze sharpened. “What’s your brother’s name?”
    “Not that it’s any of your business, but Nigel. Nigel Harrington.”
    For a moment he stared at her. “Good God!” he burst out. “That blasted, bloody, sniveling, cowardly liar! How in hell—”
    “Mr. Bancroft!” she interrupted sharply, alarmed at the venom in his voice and the high color