The Marriage Bargain Read Online Free PDF Page A

morning.
    For some reason, he’d fallen asleep on the sofa in the sitting room. Oh, well, he was in his own bed now, and that was all that mattered.
    Half-awake, he flung his arm out and it landed on something soft and warm. It felt like a…
    Please, please don’t let that be what I think it is.
    Beckett opened his eyes.

    It was what he thought it was. Gingerly, he removed his hand from the girl’s naked breast, but it was too late.
    The girl opened her eyes, a look of terror in their golden-brown depths. She opened her mouth, and screamed.
    Beckett sprang from the bed like a cat. The girl jumped up as well, not realizing her nakedness until she was standing. She screamed again, her face white as she grabbed the blanket and wrapped it hurriedly around herself. She stared at Beckett as if he had struck her.
    Monty skittered up, and tail wagging, barked at all the commotion.
    “Who are you?” she shrieked, grabbing a nearby candlestick. “Stay away from me—or I swear I’ll bash your head in!”
    “Please refrain, madam! You will ruin my coiffure, not to mention my health.”
    “I said, stay away!” she yelled, brandishing the candlestick when he took a step closer.
    “I’m staying away, see? Far, far away over here. Now, be a good girl and put that thing down.”
    “Why? So you can ravish me again?” she shrieked incredulously, pulling the blanket closer around her naked body.
    “Ravish you? No, no—you misunderstand. I can explain everything, but you must be quiet!” He half-shouted, half-whispered his words, not wanting to wake the household.
    “I will not be quiet until you explain who you are and why you’ve brought me here! And what have you done with my clothes?”
    “Ah, yes. Your clothes—are not here at the moment.”
    “Not here? I suppose they grew tired of my company and simply walked away?”
    Beckett tried not to laugh, but the effort seemed to rile the girl’s anger even more. She grabbed a little clock and launched it at his head. Beckett ducked, and just missed having his face rearranged by the marble timepiece.
    He stood straight again and whistled. He had to admit—he was impressed by her spirit.
    “So you intend to keep me prisoner like this?” she asked heatedly. “Am I to spend the rest of my days naked in your rooms?”
    Beckett paused for a moment, regarding her. She looked like a wild angel, golden hair flowing, creamy shoulders bare, with a mouth the color of roses and eyes that flashed like diamonds. “Don’t put ideas into my head.”
    There was a commotion in the hallway. He heard Hartley’s voice: “No, no, Lady Thornby, don’t go in there!”

    The door creaked open. In his strangest nightmare, Beckett could not have imagined what he would see there, standing in the hall behind his worried valet.
    His mother and his solicitor.
    They stared with pale, bloodless faces at the scene before them. Beckett realized what it must look like, standing there with a beautiful, half-naked woman in his bedchamber. Of course, being bare-chested himself wasn’t going to give the correct impression at all.
    “Oh,…” his mother cried, her hand to her mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted in a heap of ribbons and lace.
    Hartley quickly attended Lady Thornby, but Beckett had the brief thought that his mother resembled nothing so much as a fallen souffle that had been dropped to the floor.
    Mr. Livingston of Livingston, Farraday & Peel stood frozen with his great mouth agape, and seemed to be transfixed by the tableau before him. Behind him Martha, the portly cook, mimicked Mr. Livingston’s expression but covered her mouth with a flour-stained hand.
    Alfred suddenly appeared beside Beckett as well, seemingly quite amused by the scene.
    Monty skittered around the room, still wagging his tail and barking loudly at the girl in the blanket. She still brandished the heavy candlestick, and sized up the new arrivals as if to choose who first to clobber.
    “Monty,