What a Gentleman Desires Read Online Free PDF

down, then laughed. “Ah, the redoubtable Miss Marchant. A piece of work, that one, but she seems able to control m’wife and the brats. Pity she’s plain as a pikestaff and nearly as skinny. Can’t abide a woman without tits. Tits and hips, and the more the better, right? A man deserves something soft to land in, I say.”
    And as he’d said all of this, Mailer was stepping onto the gravel, his words clearly heard by everyone. Miss Marchant, his children, his staff and, most certainly, his painfully thin little wife. The dogs, whose yapping might have been helpful, had instantly quieted and were even now lying hunched on their fat bellies, as if hoping to disappear into the ground.
    “My lord,” Lady Caroline said, dropping into a curtsy, tugging at the female child’s skirts so that she did, as well, while the boy bowed to his father. “Mr. Redgrave. Welcome.” She then turned to the governess. “Daisy? If you’ll return them to the nursery, please?”
    Half dragging the reluctant dogs, the woman shuffled over to the small gathering and gave a quick, eyes-averted curtsy to the gentlemen before bringing the children to heel with a discreet clearing of her throat.
    “Daisy, is it?” Valentine drawled, leaning his head slightly forward to attempt to discern the color of her downcast eyes. “That won’t be difficult to remember. My sister’s mare is named Daisy. Oddly enough, she’s also a chestnut. Do you ride well, Daisy Marchant?”
    Mailer gave a snort of laughter and pounded Valentine on the back in glee, nearly sending him reeling, even as the governess raised her eyes for a moment, a split second, no more, to glare daggers at them both.
    Ah. Blue. Huge, and blue, and intelligent...and you’d enjoy nothing more than turning my guts into garters. Miss Daisy Marchant, you’ve done it now...and we will meet again.
    * * *
    “I CAN ONLY apologize again, Daisy,” Lady Caro said miserably as she sat in front of her dressing table, bony shoulders slumped and eyes threatening to spill over with tears yet again. “His lordship never thinks to mind his tongue.”
    Daisy pulled the pair of silver-backed brushes through her ladyship’s long blond hair. She’d been summoned to minister to her mistress, not an uncommon demand. Seven-year-old Lydia and three-year-old William had been tucked up after their porridge and left in charge of the nurse an hour earlier, and now it was time for the mistress of the household to go downstairs to play hostess again for her guest once the men left their brandy and cigars behind them in the dining room.
    If Daisy could only get the woman to move. Lord knew she couldn’t seem to get her to eat this past month. And when she did force down a few bites, as when taking her meals with guests, she more often than not, like tonight, then ran upstairs to vomit into her chamber pot.
    She’d believed the woman ill, or increasing, but after overhearing Lord Mailer this afternoon, she was now nursing another theory. The woman had begun starving herself in order to avoid her husband’s attentions. In Lady Caro’s place, she knew she might have done the same thing...although she felt fairly certain she’d be more inclined to bounce a brick off his flaming red head. Perhaps she should suggest...?
    But not now. First Daisy had a few questions she’d like answered before hopefully convincing her to return to the drawing room. “And Mr. Redgrave? I suppose we can say the same about him for his remarks?”
    Lady Caroline looked into the mirror at Daisy’s reflection. “I don’t know. That was all so confusing to me. He was ever so kind to me in London. Perhaps it was only because you’re a servant, although that shouldn’t make a difference, should it? Not if he’s a real gentleman.”
    “Perhaps that’s the answer. He’s no real gentleman.”
    “Although quite well set up, don’t you think? And clean.” The woman put her hands to her pale cheeks. “Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have