The reluctant cavalier Read Online Free PDF

carriage, Caroline did not throw any tantrums. He shut the carriage door.
    "What? Are you not coming with me?" Caroline asked, looking at him in surprise.
    "No," he said. "I would rather walk than listen to your complaints and grumbling."
    "But—!"
    "Be quiet!And if I hear you have been up to your tricks again, I shall make sure you suffer for them, believe me!"
    Caroline cast him a subdued look from under her eyelashes and subsided into the coach. Parsifal signaled the groom to leave and watched them go down the road back home. He would ask tomorrow a horse from Lord Laughton—he knew Laughton's stable well, for he'd often talked with him about the merits of various horses they'd bought, and had borrowed each other's mounts as well. He liked to walk, but it was late, and he wanted to be up early in the morning for his usual swim in the lake as well as to attend to some estate matters he had taken on lately.
    It was an easy matter to borrow a horse from Lord Laughton. His lordship, still costumed as a Turk, had retired to his library with a glass of brandy, his feet comfortably ensconced in a pair of slippers, and reading a book. He looked over his spectacles as Parsifal entered, then smiled when he pulled off his mask.
    "Damn if you don't look just like your grandfather. Almost sent me into an apoplexy, looking at you." He grinned at Parsifal's grimace. "Stopped by for a chat, have you?"
    "I fear not, sir," Parsifal said, shaking his head regretfully. "My sister got on my bad side this evening, so I sent her home early. I lost my temper, and did not want to go home with her, listening to her complaints."
    Lord Laughton waved a dismissing hand. "You should have just gone down to the stables. Haller has known you since you were in short coats and knows better than to deny you a mount." He cocked a grizzled eyebrow at Parsifal. "Your sister got on your bad side? Didn't think you had one."
    "I seemed to have developed one all of a sudden." Parsifal shrugged.
    "Hmph. Just as well." Laughton closed his book and leaned back in his chair, gazing at Parsifal in a considering manner.
    Parsifal gritted his teeth. "You too, my lord?"
    "You know me better than that, my boy, so there's no need to get your feathers ruffled. But you've often told me how that sister of yours is too hot at hand and it won't make matters any better if you let her step all over you."
    "I do not think it matters what I say or do," Parsifal replied lightly. "She does not listen to Geoffrey, either, or my mother much."
    "Hmph," Lord Laughton said again. "For all that your brother has a sharp tongue oft him, your sister knows he doesn't give a damn for anything she does."
    "Well, if she knows he doesn't, why doesn't she keep Geoffrey's company instead of mine?"
    Lord Laughton grinned widely. "Lord, boy, don't you know the girl's ways yet? If she pesters you to take her to all her parties and such, it's because she knows perfectly well that you do give a damn for what she does. Gives her leeway to do what she wants, because she knows you'll stop her before she gets in too deep. I daresay she'd be in the doldrums if she thought you were like Geoffrey."
    Parsifal could not help feeling a little gratified at the thought. His influence over his sister was small, however, and the memory of Caroline's incessant taunts and trouble-making made him roll his eyes in exasperation.
    "God save me from sisterly affection, then!" he said.
    Lord Laughton gave a crack of laughter. "Eh, so you say! But I tell you, Parsifal, if you were my son, I'd be glad of your good sense and care for your sister. Dependable— that's what you are—and it's a damned sight better thing to be than some flighty rogue."
    Parsifal felt his face grow warm at the compliment, then smiled slightly at his old friend. "I thank you, sir. I shall try to keep that in mind."
    The clock struck the half hour, and Parsifal looked up at it, startled. If he wanted to leave before the unmasking, he should go