To Love a Lord Read Online Free PDF Page A

rolled through her, reminding her of why she hated the nobility who saw those deemed inferior, such as a bastard Jane and her actress mother, as beneath their notice. Those gentlemen who could, with a single look or one word utterance, decide a person’s fate.
    She tightened her grip upon her reticule. Or who, with their roving hands, could cause a woman being turned out, labeled a whore, and—
    Jane collided with the butler’s back as he stopped beside a closed door. Her spectacles fell forward. “Forgive me,” she said hurriedly. She adjusted the frames, pushing them back on the brim of her nose. Goodness the man moved with far greater speed than she’d expect of one of his advanced years. “I—” Am distracted by my panic. “Forgive me,” she finished lamely.
    He gave her another one of those kindly smiles and, blast, if they weren’t the first smiles she’d received in…She wracked her mind, well, blast, she couldn’t recall a time she’d received one of those types of smiles. The butler knocked. There had been plenty of smiles. Silence met his rapping. There had been plenty of leering grins. He knocked once more. There were also the knowing grins.
    “Enter,” a booming voice called from within.
    She braced her shoulders as the servant pressed the handle. Jane hovered at the entrance, thinking of all the smiles she’d received in the course of her life. There had also been cruel ones and mocking ones.
    “My lord, a Mrs. Munroe has arrived from Mrs. Belden’s school.”
    But never the kindly ones. A sheen filled her eyes. Blasted rain. She removed her spectacles and dashed a hand over her eyes. How else was there to account for the sheen there other than that moisture?
    Silence met the servant’s pronouncement. She placed her wire rims on once more and looked across the room to the seated figure of the marquess. With the hard, chiseled planes of his face and the firm, noble brow and jaw, he was a regal specimen of noble perfection. She dimly registered the kindly servant backing out of the room. An irrational urge to call the kindly man back bubbled to her throat. The door closed with a quiet click that made her jump. Unnerved by the intensity of the marquess’ hard, impenetrable stare, Jane dropped a curtsy. “My lord.”
    Belatedly, he climbed to his feet, unfurling to his full height. “Mrs. Munroe.” She swallowed hard. More than a foot taller than her own five foot-three inch figure, his broad shoulders and arms strained the fabric of his midnight black coat. But for his tousled dark hair, there was nothing soft or gentle or kind about this man. The mere strength of one such as he would rouse terror in the most seasoned soldiers. Then a single loose curl fell across his brow, momentarily softening him. With long, powerful fingers he brushed it back, as though annoyed by that weakening.
    Lucifer.
    She’d once read that Lucifer came to Earth disguised in the form of a gloriously handsome gentleman and set a person to sinning. Jane thrust aside the foolish ramblings.
    He moved out from behind his desk and walked toward her, and she immediately retreated, which was, of course, foolish. More than twenty long strides separated them and she wasn’t easily roused to fear and…Her back thumped noisily against the door. “Mrs. Munroe,” he drawled, as he came to a stop at the center of the room. “Do you intend to stand at my door all afternoon or will you sit?”
    That deep, mellifluous baritone was a devil’s tone, too. Smooth and refined, yet clipped and cool. There was nothing soft in that voice, either. “Sit,” she blurted.
    He gave a flick of his wrist and she followed that subtle movement to the leather button sofa, and then looked to him once more. Did his lips turn up in a smile? Surely she’d merely imagined that faint expression of amusement? A coolly aloof, lofty gentleman such as he did not smile. She peered at the marquess through her glass lenses but could detect no trace of