The Reluctant Governess Read Online Free PDF Page B

smell spirits from this distance, although his dinner party had been rowdy in the extreme. “Well, you have been doing something that you ought not, and got in trouble for it. Think of your daughter, Mr. Raeburn. You have a responsibility to her. You can’t go around fighting and drinking and—and wenching.”
    â€œI don’t need you to lecture me on my responsibilities. You have no idea of anything or what I’ve been doing. Look at you!” His face had darkened so that his bruises blended in.
    Eliza felt her own color rise. “What about me?”
    â€œYou are so smug. Self-righteous. A pretty prig.”
    Eliza heard the “pretty,” but the other words held more weight. “I am just as I should be, Mr. Raeburn, a respectable woman. I am not one of your n-naked models.” She checked the neckline of her dressing gown to make sure not even an inch of clavicle was showing.
    His foot was twirling in an agitated manner, but his voice was ennui itself. “Don’t worry. You are
completely
safe from me.”
    Eliza stumbled to her feet. “I will bore you no longer, Mr. Raeburn. Good night.”
    She was halfway up the stairs before she heard him laugh like a lunatic. So he was drunk after all.

Chapter 4
    Damn it all. If Nick hadn’t been so prideful, he could have explained what happened. But Miss Lawrence had been so disapproving in her angelic white nightgown covered by an ungodly gray wrapper and schoolgirl braids, she had made him want to be very bad.
    Nick knew it was wrong to blame others for his loss of control. Lord knows, Alec and Evan had lectured him enough when they had not joined in his mischief. And he was much too old at eight and twenty to be getting into scrapes such as tonight’s, but Maisie’s man wanted instruction.
    The fellow would not be bothering Maisie or any other woman for a while. Nick hadn’t counted on the weaponry, but in the end it had been the key to get Phil Cross locked up for the foreseeable future. The attempted murder of a peer’s brother was no minor offense. Nick just hoped the peer in question would be on his way to Southampton before the newspapers broke the story. Alec would read him the Riot Act and Nick wagered his new little red-headed wife would not be far behind.
    How to get up the stairs? He couldn’t call Miss Lawrence back and lean on her arm—she’d just as soon tear it off and beat him with it. From her perspective, he supposed he had gotten what was coming to him. He had been a bit cavalier with her today, not fully appreciative. Mrs. Quinn said as how Miss Lawrence helped in the kitchen with the dinner and made it a fun game for Sunny as well.
    Nick had refused medical attention, another sign he was an idiot, just as Miss Lawrence suggested. He didn’t care about his face, but the slice in his thigh was stinging like the very devil. An unlucky few inches higher and—it was clear what Phil Cross had been trying to do. Thank God Tubby had come back with a policeman in time to witness Cross abandon his knife for a gun.
    Nick had been remarkably stupid tonight. He thought he could talk reason to the blighter, offer him money to stop beating the poor girl. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping to throw a fist or two, but he had not counted on Cross’s lack of fair play. Phil Cross had certainly never heard of the Marquess of Queensberry rules, or any other rules Nick could think of. He was damned lucky he had escaped alive from his misplaced chivalry. Maisie had shrieked at him the whole time and thrown a crock of something unspeakable at him, which had cut into his forehead, too.
    Well, Maisie would not be posing for his tribute to Raphael anytime soon, although he’d given her rent money for the year. He was, as it had been established, an idiot.
    And his starchy governess thought him worse than that. But what did he care? She would be gone in a day or two and