A Proper Taming Read Online Free Page A

filling his ears, he made his way to his rooms.
    "Well, I hope you are satisfied!" The door had scarce closed behind the earl before Mrs. Quincy was letting her displeasure be known. "Disgrace and ruin, that is what you have brought down on all our heads! We shall be taken up over this, you mark my words, and if you think I mean to suffer for
your
folly, you are all about in the head! I shall inform his lordship I had nothing to do with this . . . this display, and then I shall return to Chipping Campden where you may make very sure I shall waste no time in informing the vicar of your conduct. Not that it should surprise him in the slightest," she added with a sneer. "He warned me you were a limb of Satan. Would that I had listened!"
    "And would that I had listened to my solicitor, Mrs. Quincy. He told me you were a shrew of the first water, and it would appear he did not lie," Portia retorted, wearily rubbing her forehead.Now that the initial excitement had faded, she was feeling oddly flat, and the only thing she desired was privacy in which to soothe her lacerated nerves. Unfortunately it appeared she would have to do battle if she hoped to enjoy even that small courtesy.
    Mrs. Quincy's jaw dropped at the sharp words. Her mouth opened and closed several times before she managed a strangled, "Well, of all the ungrateful, ill-mannered females it has been my misfortune to encounter! You, Miss Haverall, are naught but a hussy, and you may consider our association at an end! Good night!" And she stormed out of the room, her hooked nose held high in the air.
    "And good riddance to you, you old cat!" Nancy responded, closing the door with a satisfying bang. She turned back to Portia with a look of grim delight. "If I'd known that smashing a bed warmer over a lord's head was all it took to be shed of that biddy, I'd have done it myself days ago! Now mayhap we can enjoy some peace and quiet without listening to her snipping and complaining every five minutes."
    Portia's lips curved in a reluctant smile. "Doubtlessly that is what Dryden meant about everything being good for something," she said. Then her smile faded as the reality of their situation set in. "Nancy, you don't think his lordship will have me arrested, do you?"
    The maid's expression grew as somber as her mistress's. "As to that, miss, there's no way of telling," she said, nervously clasping her hands together. "He did seem a trifle put out with you, but mayhap he'll be in better fiddle once his head ain't paining him. And don't be forgetting it's
him
as pushed his way into
your
bedchamber. No judge is likely to fault you for protecting yourself however you could."
    Her words eased some of Portia's fears as she considered that aspect of the matter. "There is that," she agreed slowly, her lips curving in a thoughtful smile as she imagined how she would defend herself should the earl drag her in front of a magistrate. She'd wear her primmest gown, she decided, presenting herself as a well-connected lady of respectable birth forced by unhappy circumstances to spend the night at an inn. Naturally, she would tearfully assure an understanding judge, when a strange man barged into her room she did the only thing possible in the circumstances.
    Perhaps she'd even mention her father's death, she mused, brightening at the possibility. Any judge worthy of the name was certain to look more kindly upon an orphan who . . . Her thoughts slammed to a horrified halt as she realized the direction they had taken. She was doing it again, plotting and scheming so that she might have her own way. And to compound her crime, she was even planning to use her father's death to justify her actions . . . She closed her eyes as bitter guilt burned through her.
    "Miss Portia, are you all right?" Nancy was regarding her anxiously. "You've gone as white as a corpse!"
    "I'm just tired, that is all," Portia replied, not wishing to share her dark thoughts with anyone, not even Nancy. "If you'll