To Tame a Dangerous Lord Read Online Free PDF

safe.”
    Haviland turned to Madeline. “You should return to your chamber and dress, Miss Ellis, while I pay your shot with the innkeep.”
    She lifted an eyebrow. “I thought I explained my feelings on the subject of charity quite clearly.”
    “And I thought we agreed not to argue. Do you have any luggage to stow in my carriage?”
    Madeline stared at Haviland in disbelief, but he regarded her evenly.
    “Have you any luggage to take with you?” he repeated with the cool assurance of a man who inevitably got his way.
    “Merely a bandbox. My trunk was still on the stage the last I knew.”
    “I will have innkeep fetch your trunk and arrange for its delivery to Chiswick.”
    “Lord Haviland—” she began before his deep voice interrupted in a silken tone.
    “Do you need me to escort you to your room, Miss Ellis?”
    He was clearly single-minded of purpose, leaving her with the feeling of being swept along in his wake. It was exasperating in the extreme…. But still, throwing her lot in with Lord Haviland seemed the best alternative, given her circumstances. She felt safer with him thanstranded on her own at a strange inn, although that was not saying much.
    Before making her decision, Madeline looked to his cousin. The congenial Mr. Lunsford seemed harmless enough. In fact, his charming manner reminded her somewhat of her brother, Gerard. She was marginally comforted to know Mr. Lunsford would be following them to Chiswick. Yet she didn’t relish the prospect of being alone with Lord Haviland in his carriage. Such close proximity would remind her too keenly of his devastating kisses. On the other hand, he was a trusted friend of her father’s, so surely she could trust him also.
    Madeline found herself giving the same sigh of resignation that his cousin had given. “No, my lord, I do
not
require an escort.”
    Haviland smiled then, a slow, spellbinding, approving smile that took her breath away. “Good. We will await you here and depart as soon as you are dressed.”
    Forcing herself to exhale inaudibly, Madeline gave a curt nod to Haviland and a polite curtsy to his relative, then hurried toward the door.
    The last thing she heard as she left the parlor was Mr. Lunsford complaining in a half-amused voice. “I suppose you cannot help playing the white knight, Rayne, but need you rescue a distressed damsel just when I need you the most?”
    Haviland’s response, when it came, was in a similar amused vein. “No, I cannot help myself—and you should be grateful for my compulsion, since you will benefit from it.”
    “Oh, I am, I am….”
    She
was grateful to Lord Haviland as well, Madeline decided as she quickly made her way down the corridorto her bedchamber. Yet she couldn’t help but worry that by putting her fate in the hands of a nobleman of Haviland’s stamp—a dangerous lord whom she found overwhelming and nearly irresistible—she was truly leaping from the frying pan into the flames.
       After apologizing once more to a disappointed Freddie for the change in plans, Rayne pulled the bell rope, which brought the innkeeper scurrying to do his bidding. He paid the bills and arranged for Miss Ellis’s trunk to be delivered to Riverwood near Chiswick and for his own coach to be readied, then compensated the proprietor handsomely to stifle any urge he might have to gossip. Finally, Rayne settled on the sofa to hear Freddie’s tale of woe.
    What he learned about his scapegrace relative did not surprise him: Freddie, lamentably, had indulged in a torrid affair with a French widow named Solange Sauville and was now being blackmailed with the love letters he foolishly wrote to her.
    “She wants two thousand pounds, devil take her,” Freddie lamented. “If I cannot come up with the blunt, she’s threatened to go to my father. You must save me, Rayne. Not only will my quarterly allowance be cut off, I’ll be banished to the wilds of
Yorkshire.”
    It was not an idle threat, Rayne suspected, knowing