Worth Lord of Reckoning Read Online Free PDF Page A

when you know you’ll enjoy your tea.”
    He took his hands away, having made his point, and Jacaranda’s inchoate chill was abruptly supplanted by a peculiar heat rising from her middle.
    “You’re blushing,” Mr. Kettering informed her. “I’m charmed, but you’re still not drinking your tea, and until you have a sip, I can’t touch mine.”
    She drank her tea, a cautious taste at first, but he was right: The tea was hot, strong and sweet, and the first cup of tea she’d ever had prepared by a man. The taste was disconcertingly good.
    “Better, right?” He set his empty cup on the table. “I should have a housekeeper around here, and she might have something dry you could borrow to wear. It’s dark out, thank the Deity. No one need see you in a servant’s attire if we wrap you in a dark cloak and take you home in a closed carriage.”
    “I beg your pardon?” Servant’s attire?
    “I’m rather fond of the old dear,” he went on, “and one doesn’t want to give offense to loyal retainers. Mrs. Wyeth is the closest thing to a decent female on the premises, unless you want me canvassing the neighbors for some clothes?”
    “I will wear my own clothes, thank you very much.” She pushed her half-finished tea away and made to rise, but he’d boxed her in on the bench, and as soon as she gained her feet, her head sounded a trumpet fanfare of pain that blared past her neck, into her chest and arm.
    “Perishing damned females, excuse the language,” he muttered while he gently tugged her back down beside him. “I don’t suppose you’re married, and that’s what all this misguided dignity is about? You will tell me now if some anxious husband must be dealt with. I insist on honesty from the women I rescue, and have no patience for mornings wasted on the field of so-called honor.”
    She sank onto the bench, mortified to feel another flush—it was not a blush—accompanying the pounding in her skull. How busy her bodily responses were after such an insignificant bump on the head.
    “Naughty girl,” he chided, his arm around her waist. He used his free hand to sweep her wet hair back over her shoulder, the better to mortify her by studying her wound.
    “Now listen to me, duchess, because I am not at all accustomed to explaining myself.” He drew his hand over her hair again, as if to move it, except the entire damp, curling mass of her sopping braid was already lying back over her shoulder. Then he did it again. And again.
    “A newly discovered younger relation will join me here tomorrow—a schoolgirl, but at that dangerous, almost-hatched age, you know? Then, too, my niece will be coming along, and she’s a frightfully noticing little thing, much as my late sister was. I can’t offend my housekeeper’s sensibilities when I’ve all but ignored my own property for five years. We must see you returned to your proper residence, even if you’re a bit bedraggled and the worse for wear.”
    Still that slow, beguiling caress continued over Jacaranda’s damp hair as Mr. Kettering went on. “A man has the right to ignore his possessions and estates, provided he’s not negligent, but housekeepers are women, and they take on about such things. They get attached to their routines, and I’ve every intention of ignoring the place for another five years once I get these infernal girls sorted out. So we’ll not be upsetting my dear Mrs. Wyeth, hmm?”
    Jacaranda lifted her head from his shoulder, having no idea how she’d assumed such a misbegotten posture.
    “You are without doubt the most conceited, managing excuse for a grown man it has ever been my misfortune to share a pond with.”
    His hand disappeared. “Be that as it may, you will not upset my housekeeper with airs and ingratitude, regardless of your mood, station, or dented noggin.”
    “There’s no need for me to upset her,” Jacaranda shot back. “You’ve already done a thorough job of it.”

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    Worth’s midnight mermaid was