Woo'd in Haste Read Online Free PDF Page B

fast. Or maybe it was simply that Bianca was changing inside. Growing up, restless, no longer content to wait on someone else’s whim. No longer needing to keep the peace.
    “Will you be my companion when I do have a Season?” she asked, following her thoughts, the original impetus nearly forgotten.
    Lottie looked surprised. “I imagine so,” she said slowly. “We shall see, when the time comes, what your father and stepmother choose to do.”
    Bianca nodded, feeling tremulously near tears but unsure why.
    Lottie stared at her, and then offered a tight smile. “I shall see you at dinner. I must go discuss Thomas’s schedule with Mr. Dore.”

 

C HAPTER F OUR
----
    I t was cold on Friday morning. And early. No one had any business being up at this hour, let alone exerting themselves out of the house. Luc hunched in his overcoat, despite the fact that it was summer, the warmest time of the year. Of course, he would have to fall in love with a woman enamored of the outdoors. In the morning.
    He liked the outdoors, too, by horseback, at a decent hour. After one had slept off the excesses of the night before. Not that he’d had any excesses last night, but he could still feel the effects of the night before that, when the disappointment of not seeing Bianca had sent him in the direction of a large quantity of brandy. He’d only considered afterward that a tutor probably should not be helping himself to the stock of spirits kept in the library.
    Regardless, Thomas was far too lively. Bianca was far too cheery, as well. Perhaps she was not perfect.
    Admittedly, this spot on the stream that edged the Mansfield estate was lovely. All dewy green grass and sparkling water. Sunshine filtering through a perfect haze.
    And Thomas digging his elbow into Luc’s thigh as he tried to explain about the fishing pole.
    He kept starting and stopping his explanation, getting flustered much the way he had the day before when Miss Smith had asked him to explain to Luc how he knew that four times three was twelve.
    Finally the little boy stopped, took a deep breath, and turned to him with a furrowed brow.
    “It’s best if my sister teaches you, I think. She fishes better than anyone I know. Even better than Father.”
    “Is that so?” Luc eyed her speculatively. Fishing certainly wasn’t a talent he had ever imagined her possessing. A fair hand at a canvas or an instrument, perhaps, or a pretty singing voice and a knowledge of French. But she was currently handing her brother an ugly bit of matter, of which he could only distinguish a feather, without the slightest quiver of disgust.
    Bianca laughed. “It is, though my father would never admit to it.”
    He averted his eyes from the thing hanging from her fingers and focused on her beautiful eyes. Yes. That was why he was here. “So will you? Teach me?”
    “Yes.” But she sounded a bit reserved.
    Thomas grinned, grabbed his angle-rod and bucket, and ran off a few feet to take his position by the stream’s bank.
    “The hardest part is knowing what to use when,” she cautioned, expertly fitting the fly as bait to the hook of the angle-rod. “Some people think this barbaric, but it really is no different from hunting.” She handed him the rod and he took it with false confidence. When she turned from him to outfit her own rod, he glanced to where Thomas stood casting his line into the water for a hint of how to go about the activity.
    Then out of the corner of his eye he caught Bianca matter-of-factly lifting up the hem of her dress and fastening it up to little hooks in the side of the garment that he hadn’t previously noticed. But the hooks hardly mattered to him when he could now admire the curve of her stocking-clad calf, the lovely indent of her ankle.
    When Bianca picked up her rod again and turned toward the stream, he quickly averted his eyes.
    He took a deep breath and swung the rod. The line sailed and plunked down in the water, sending up a spray of water. A small