The Scarred Earl Read Online Free PDF Page B

crumbs of common sense and stay here while I track them both down for you?’
    ‘You must do as you please, my lord,’ she made herself say as distantly as she could manage when he was so close that every sense seemed on edge.
    Apparently he expected her to behave like some passive maiden in a story, waiting for the prince to slay her dragons and retrieve her when he wasn’t busy. She told herself this hollow feeling she was fighting wasn’t caused by the disappointment that he could misread her so radically, or want her to be so different from the real Persephone Seaborne under her fine lady gloss.
    ‘While you do exactly the same?’ he asked as if he’d like to shake her.
    ‘I must,’ she said quietly.
    ‘From where I stand, you absolutely must not.’
    ‘Ah, but you’ve got your feet firmly planted in those trusty male Hessians of yours, haven’t you, Lord Calvercombe? Standing in them, I doubt I’d see how anyone could go their own way without your interference, either.’
    ‘Nonsense,’ he said gruffly, with a look that told her he knew she was right, under all that temper and frustration, and it only made things worse.
    Something inside her shifted, almost softened, and since that would cause all sorts of chaos if she let it, she refused to consider the notion they might do better together than they would apart. ‘How is it that men always accuse us women of speaking rubbish whenever we’re in danger of winning an argument?’ she mused, doing her best to guard her inner thoughts and fears from him with a superior smile.
    ‘I don’t know,’ he said after what looked like a mighty struggle. ‘Could it be because you talk such illogical claptrap we can’t help but be driven half mad? Maybe it’s because when a woman risks having to admit a man could be right, she deploys every weapon she can lay hands on to avoid doing so?’
    ‘What a very odd opinion you do have of my sex, my lord,’ she said sweetly, deciding that since she wasn’t going to find peace today, perhaps she ought to leave him to his instead.
    ‘I’ll admit I find many ladies empty-headed and silly, but that’s mostly the faultof unequal upbringing and low expectations. In your case it can only be wilful stupidity though, since your family seems to expect a great deal of both its male and female members. Your little sisters behave themselves with grace and intelligence, after all, so I can hardly blame your parents for your own lack of manners, can I?’
    ‘Penelope and Helen are good, dear girls, my lord. You’ll not succeed in driving a wedge between us by praising them and slighting me. You clearly never had a brother or sister you would walk to the end of the world for if you had to, so I can only feel sorry for you for that lack,’ she said, hoping he would see steady purpose in her eyes when they met his, rather than a fear they were both up against a force hellbent on making sure his family never set eyes on Rich again this side of the grave.
    ‘It won’t do Rich a mite of good if you sacrifice your peace of mind, personal safety and reputation and achieve nothing. Can you imagine how he would feel if he knew you were pitting your wits against the enemy he disappeared in order to avoid?’ he asked, running his hands through his hair, making it curl wildly. He turned away from herto stride up and down the path as if it were the only way to stop himself laying hands on her and physically shaking her this time.
    ‘It may surprise you, but, yes, I can see that,’ she told him quietly.
    ‘And it makes no difference? You’re bound and determined to go your own way, whatever the cost to the rest of us might be.’
    ‘It will cost you nothing, my lord. You clearly don’t like me and will not care a snap of your fingers what happens to me.’
    Somehow that stopped him in his wolf-like pacing and he turned to glare back at her as if she’d accused him of some terrible crime. ‘I might not like you, woman, but that