The Wicked Wager Read Online Free PDF

duke
doesn’t hire riff raffs, mind you.”
    “Some say, I am a doctor of plants. My roses
are the finest and the fruits I grow, the sweetest.”
    “Hear this lads, he says he is the doctor
of plants. You take ’em and put their broken branches up in slings and dose ’em
with some Laudanum, eh?”
    “Mayhap you sing the wee ones some
lullaby!”
    The pub roared with laughter while the earl
scowled through his beard.
    He had expected the dirty mugs and the flea
infested bed, but he had not expected to become the butt of all jokes.
    It had all started with choosing the wrong
sort of name. He should have chosen some other gardener to impersonate, but his
own retired man had seemed so perfect. He was conveniently far away with no one
aware of his whereabouts.
    He had often wondered at the fierce
expression on his gardener’s face every time he had encountered him. Lord or
lowly servant would be all treated to that same angry expression. He scared the
maids and terrified the housekeeper.
    Had he not been such a wonderful gardener
the earl would have let him go. Instead, he had worked for him until the ripe
old age of sixty.
    The earl felt a twinge of sympathy for the
old man. He no longer blamed the man for his severe visage, since he was doing
a darned good imitation of it at that moment.
    His plan had worked beautifully up until
the time they had taken up lodgings at the inn nearby the duke’s residence.
    Every time he was introduced, the game of
lets pull the new gardener’s leg began. He could hardly hold a decent
conversation for more than a minute before striding out in anger.
    His valet had proved to be a treasure,
since his own investigations were coming to naught. Burns, with his perfectly
respectable name, had gone out to glean what information he could.
    “Why are we packing, Burns?”
    “Sir, we are going back to London.”
    The earl took out his snow white handkerchief
and placed it on a chair. He then perched his bottom carefully on the cloth.
Once done, he turned back to his valet, whose countenance resembled the peeling
yellow walls.
    “And why are we going back?”
    “Sir, that man, the duke, is a terror. The last
time he caught a man trying to cheat him he made him wear his housekeeper’s
skirts, sat him upon a donkey, and took him for a ride around the village.”
    “Hmm”
    “My Lord, they … the little girls … they
threw flowers at him.”
    “Stop trembling in emotion. He wouldn’t
dare do that to an earl.”
    “The man who cheated him had been a baron.”
    The earl gulped. The valet resumed packing.
    “This is the test of true love, Burns. The
duke is my personal dragon, standing in the way of my claiming the beautiful
princess. I will not allow him to kidnap my beautiful Emma, even if it means
facing my death.”
    “Sir, didn’t she go to him on her own?”
    “Dash it, you fail to see the romance of it
all.”
    “After ten years of being married to my
missus, forgive me for forgetting what romance is like,” Burns retorted.
    This entire business of telling Burns to
treat him as an equal was simply not working out. He had wanted to get into
character and had threatened and cajoled his valet to speak his mind. Now that
Burns was getting into the spirit of things, the earl was not feeling
particularly happy.
    “We are not leaving before the month is
over, and that is the end of it. Unpack the bags,” he ordered.
    Burns stood looking torn. His full red
cheeks puffed in agitation. He finally sighed and did as he was told.
    The earl gave a sharp nod, and after
checking his appearance in the dirty, cracked mirror nailed to the wall, he
proceeded to the duke’s estate.
    ***
    “It is difficult to decide what to do?”
    The earl stared at Mrs Purcell nervously.
She had to hire him; he couldn’t have it otherwise. The woman standing before
him was tall and thin faced, just the type he would have imagined the duke to
hire - capable and cold.
    “What may be the problem, miss? Is
something