The Duke's Dilemma Read Online Free PDF Page A

side to where nature had been left to her own devices. She breathed a sigh of relief. This was more like it—there was no evidence of the duke’s fine hand here.
    She could see a stand of birch trees at the far end of the meadow, their leaves fluttering in the breeze like a great flock of silver butterflies, and, beyond them, the crystal waters of a small lake sparkled in the early morning sun. Like a child released from a tedious schoolroom, Emily gave a joyous cry, picked up her skirts and ran pell-mell across the open meadow toward the inviting scene.
    Minutes later, warm-cheeked and breathless, she stood on the edge of the lake. For the first time since she’d boarded the London coach in her tiny village in the Cotswolds two months earlier, she felt at peace with the world.
    With a deep breath of the cool morning air, she spread wide her arms and reveled in the blessed silence of this lovely spot. None of the rude noises of the city here. No carriages bumping over cobblestones, no vendors hawking their wares, no babble of voices nor clatter of horses’ hooves along congested streets. Just the sighing of the breeze through the trees and now and then the mournful bleating of a lamb for its ewe mother.
    The bleating grew more insistent, and Emily looked about her to discover the source. It was immediately evident. At a nearby spot where the bank stood level with the lakeshore, a lamb that looked to be but a few days old stood withers deep in the water. From the skid marks at the lake’s edge, it was obvious the tiny creature had lost its footing while trying to drink and slid into the lake and now was too frozen with fear to try for dry land on its own.
    Emily worked her way to within a few feet of the mired lamb, but it was too far out in the water for her to reach it. She tried coaxing it to come to her; but with every word she uttered its eyes grew wilder, its bleating louder.
    Finally, in desperation, she removed her boots and stockings, knotted her skirt between her legs above her knees and waded in after it. She had just managed to get her arms around the noisy, dripping creature when she heard the sound of hoof beats and, looking up, found she had an audience. One glimpse of the black-haired man astride the midnight black horse, and her heart nearly stopped. “The duke,” she gasped, clutching the noisy, wriggling lamb to her chest.
    Then she looked again. This man might have shockingly similar facial features and coloring, but he was a far cry from the fastidious Duke of Montford. With his blue-black hair wildly windblown and his rugged jawline darkly shadowed by a day’s growth of beard, he looked more like a highwayman than a titled aristocrat. Tight fitting black trousers, mud-covered boots and a wide-sleeved homespun shirt open at the throat completed the thatch-gallows look of the handsome stranger.
    He leaned forward in the saddle until he was almost directly above her. “The sights one sees on an early morning ride,” he remarked with a chuckle—further proof he was anyone but the Duke of Montford. Emily was certain that stiff-necked peer of the realm would never be guilty of anything as undignified as chuckling.
    She took a closer look and found another striking difference between the two men. Unlike the chilling disdain she’d seen in the duke’s pale eyes, the eyes staring down at her fairly sparked with laughter.
    “I suppose you must have a reason for bathing that lamb,” he said, surveying her with obvious skepticism, “but I cannot, at the moment, think what it might be.”
    Emily was not in the mood for idle banter—especially from this scruffy example of local manhood. Her feet and legs were turning blue with the cold, her stomach rumbled with hunger, and the smell of wet wool was beginning to make her feel decidedly queasy. “I am not bathing him, you looby,” she stated indignantly. “I am rescuing him. He fell in the water and could not get out by himself.”
    “Looby?” One