The Reluctant Governess Read Online Free PDF

other fellow.”
    His face was covered in blood. Eliza saw tiny black spots dance in front of her eyes, and then nothing else.
    ***
    â€œI thought
you
were supposed to be helping
me
,” Mr. Raeburn said, hovering over her. His beautiful face was discolored, but from the looks of things he’d wiped most of the blood off with his silk cravat, which dangled from one swollen hand. Eliza shut her eyes, although she supposed one could not fall into a faint again when one was already lying down. And where was she? She cracked one lid.
    They were both in the ground floor morning room overlooking the back garden, though the stained glass window was black as death. Still in the middle of the night, then. He must have carried her to the sofa from the hallway. Better that than dumping her on the dining table in the next room, she supposed.
    Eliza struggled up on her elbows, tasseled pillows falling to the floor. “Wh-what happened?”
    He picked the pillows up and tucked them back behind her. “To me or to you? I say, it was most unfair for you to swoon and force me to pick you up. I can barely walk as it is without carting around a well-fed young woman.”
    Was he implying she was fat? The bounder! “I didn’t ask you to do anything!”
    â€œNo, for you conked right out, didn’t you? Sheet-white, eyes rolled back in your head, a veritable textbook case. Cat definitely got your tongue and swallowed it whole. I’m sorry you can’t deal with a little bit of blood.”
    A little bit of blood? The man was mad. He’d looked like he’d been bathing in it, a great red river of— She swallowed hard. No more torturing herself with such an image. She was not so missish that the usual scrape or cut bothered her.
    But he’d been so very, very bloody. Dried bits had mixed in with his incipient coppery beard, and she shuddered.
    â€œShould you call a doctor?” Eliza asked when she had pulled herself together.
    â€œBecause you were so lily-livered to faint? I don’t think so.”
    â€œNot for me, you idi—I mean, for you,” she said, minding her words just a trifle too late. He raised a rusty eyebrow. There was a deep cut above it, and he winced. He’d have to do his rakish eyebrow-raising tricks with the other.
    â€œFor me? Whatever for?”
    â€œYou have been beaten to a pulp, sir,” she said repressively.
    â€œStabbed, too. But who’s keeping track? I’ll be fine with a hot bath and a hot toddy.”
    â€œI venture to say it was drink that got you into this fix in the first place.” She was
not
going to stitch up any part of him. Let him run around London and become a pincushion.
    He gave her an unashamed, crooked smile. “Would you now? Are you saying I’m a drunkard, Miss Lawrence?”
    â€œI don’t know what you are, Mr. Raeburn, and I don’t plan to stay long enough to find out.”
    â€œWhat about Sunny?”
    â€œI shan’t leave before the Evensong Agency secures a replacement. I wouldn’t let Lady Raeburn down.”
    â€œWe don’t need you anyway,” Mr. Raeburn said, folding his long body into the chair opposite. “Interfering females.”
    At least he wasn’t bending over her any longer, although she had no intention of prolonging this discussion with him. “You need some interference, sir,” she said, sitting up. The room spun only a little—she must have hit her head when she fell. “That poor child! What if she had come downstairs to find her papa lying half dead on the floor?”
    â€œShe probably wouldn’t have fainted, for one thing,” he said imperturbably. “Sunny’s got grit. And you exaggerate. I was nowhere near half dead.”
    â€œCastaway, then.”
    â€œI don’t know why you persist in claiming I am inebriated, Miss Lawrence. I am as sober as a judge.”
    Eliza took a sniff. It was true she could not