The Defiant One Read Online Free PDF

Bonkley.  You marry her, get your hands on her wealth, and bail me out of debt.  What the blazes is so difficult about that?"
    "Getting her to say yes, for one thing.  And perhaps I might have succeeded in my quest if that deuced de Montforte fellow hadn't interfered just as things were heating up."
    "What do you mean, interfered?  The duke has been discussing politics with Pitt for the last fifteen minutes!"
    "I'm not talking about the duke, I'm talking about that damned brother of his, Andrew.  He came upon us outside on the stairs just as I was about to ravish her.  So much for ruining her reputation!  I swear, Somerfield, if I'd been armed, he wouldn't have lived to regret it!"
    "If you'd been armed, I daresay you wouldn't have lived to regret it," muttered Gerald.  "He is a master swordsman, Bonkley, and you'd do well to remember it.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go find my sister and try to talk some sense into her."
    Sir Harold fumed at the insult as he watched the younger man go.  He had been so sure of success where everyone else had failed that he'd told half the people in the room that he was as good as betrothed to the eccentric heiress.  Now she'd made both him and her brother a laughingstock.
    His fists clenched with rage.
    Draining his glass, he stalked off through the crowd.
    ~~~~
    Upstairs in her apartments, Celsie waved off her maid, threw herself down on her bed, and still fully clothed, lay on the silken coverlet, trying not to scream with frustration, trying not to hurl something across the room, trying not to think about Bonkley molesting her and how she'd felt when she'd looked up, only to discover that Lord Andrew de Montforte had been her gallant rescuer.
    God help her, why did it have to be him ?
    She loathed him!  He was surly, arrogant, and ill-mannered!  He experimented on animals!  Why, he'd said himself that he sent them up in flying machines and poured evil solutions down their throats!
    The tears came, damn them.  She felt them wetting the coverlet beneath her hot face, felt them burning inside her nose and making the back of her throat ache.  She did not understand them.
    Why am I so upset?
    Because Sir Harold Bonkley has ruined my evening , she wanted to shout at herself.  But Herself didn't quite believe it, so her grasping mind tried something else.  Because men are constantly trying to order my life to their own wishes, patronizing me, treating me as though I lack a brain and will of my own.   No, that wasn't it either.  Toenails clicked on the floor and a moment later the bed sagged as Freckles heaved his big body up beside her.  She sat up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and hugged him fiercely.  Because Freckles's face is now completely grey and he can't walk very well anymore and now I've found a strange lump just below his ear and I am scared to death.
    Yes, that was it.  That was why she was crying.  It had nothing to do with the fact that, as usual, nobody had taken her impassioned pleas on behalf of animals seriously.  And it had nothing to do with the fact that when Lord Andrew had saved her from Bonkley, she'd had a mad inclination to hurl herself into his arms and let him kiss her instead.
    It had nothing to do with Lord Andrew!
    She buried her face in Freckles's neck and sobbed.  "Oh, Freck  . . .  What is wrong with me?"
    He was too old and too dignified to lick her face.  He merely sat there and stoically let her hug him, leaning his body slightly toward hers.
    "Nobody wants to hear about the poor little turnspits who run their legs off in hot kitchens so that people's meat might be roasted," she told him brokenly.  "Nobody cares about the way cart horses are beaten until they drop, or how hundreds of unwanted, unloved dogs and cats are starving in the streets because there aren't enough homes for them.  No, nobody cares.  All they want to do was drink my expensive wine, eat my expensive food, try to win my expensive — and