The Scarred Earl Read Online Free PDF

dignity as she could muster.
    If not for the habit he had of watching her with cynical incredulity—as if he were about to have her stalked and captured to be displayed as a public curiosity—she might have turned and walked away, but as it was she didn’t trust him not to go straight to her mother and warn her that her daughter was intent on seeking out her errant eldest son, if only to get Persephone out of his way andcarry on searching for Rich and his precious cousin Annabelle unopposed.
    ‘At least I now know I read you right in the first place,’ he muttered with a formidable frown to tell her he’d hoped he was wrong, for once in his life.
    ‘I’m a Seaborne—what else did you expect?’ she said scornfully.
    ‘Some common sense and a smidgeon of ladylike self-restraint to make you more endurable?’ he asked as if he already knew that was too much to ask.
    ‘That would be your mistake, my lord, not mine.’
    ‘So I see, but would you truly risk your unfortunate mother losing yet another of her offspring in such a reckless fashion, Miss Seaborne? I dare say she’d miss you as much as she does her eldest son, even if I can’t currently fathom any reason why she should find your absence aught but a blessing,’ he replied, as if only his talent for merciless words kept him from physically shaking her.
    ‘It’s because she’s our mother and a darling, something you clearly wouldn’t understand,’ she declared, informing her conscience it wasn’t a low blow if it got her out of here with her dignity intact.
    She would not lose the blazing Seaborne temper she had inherited in spades from her passionate and often restless sire and make this infuriating idiot happy that he’d bested her in an argument. She didn’t need his admiration or approval, but letting him brush her off as a feminine irrelevance was not an option she could allow, either.
    ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ he admitted. ‘Although I do have an imagination,’ he went on, ‘even if it’s a quality you clearly lack. Being cursed with such a questionable gift, it tells me you could end up as alone and beleaguered as Rich Seaborne if you carry on pursuing this mystery. You risk losing everything you have, Miss Seaborne—your health, your safety and even your sanity—if you try to pick up their trail where I left off, and that’s a risk too far for a gently bred female.’
    ‘How would you know?’ she demanded, stung by the assumption he knew better than she did what was good for her.
    ‘You can really ask such a question of a former soldier like me? How naive are you in this ridiculous quest to outsmart your brother and the enemy he and Annabelle must be hiding from? Rape and slavery are weapons of war, Miss Seaborne. Pray that you neverhave to watch the sack of a conquered city or face the wrath of a triumphant enemy.’ He fell silent as appalling images flicked through his head in a kaleidoscope of horror she could only imagine.
    Persephone hesitated between keeping out of whatever battles might be coming, as he wanted, and following her instincts to find her brother and help him come home at long last. At times she knew he was in trouble almost as if she were there with him, while at others his fate was obscure as a brick wall. No, even if it meant losing some elusive something she should never want and couldn’t have with this man, she still had to find Rich. She shook her head sadly and met his eyes with something she feared was very close to an apology in them.
    ‘Would you give up trying to find your cousin Annabelle if someone warned you it could be dangerous and tried to make you stop?’ she asked.
    ‘No, but I’m a man and a former soldier. If you have it in you to look beyond the end of your own nose, imagine what a bitter enemy might do to the lovely young sister of a man he’s set out to break and overcome. Rich Seaborne has enemies who would love to holda trump card like his sister in their hands, so why not show some