Guarding a Notorious Lady Read Online Free Page A

Whatever did he mean by that? “Well then,” she said pertly, “perhaps a man of your sort ought to cease making unfounded assumptions.” He tipped his head in a conceding gesture, a curious warmth in his gaze.
    She fought the nearly overwhelming urge to ask him what he was thinking. “If y-you’ll excuse me, I have a book to purchase.” What a coward she was turning out to be.
    He stepped aside, extending his arm to allow her the way.
    Chin lifted, shoulders back, Rosalind passed him and strode toward the front desk, willing herself to keep her pace steady and unaffected.
    Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that he wasn’t that far behind, about three feet back to her left. However, just when she believed he was going to follow her, he turned and strode toward the exit.
    The pretty shopgirl from before approached the door at the same time, her arms full of novels. Tipping his hat to her, he smiled as he opened the door for her.
    Rosalind let her giant book slam on the counter.
    He s miled ? He hardly ever smiled.
    “My lady? Is something amiss?” A very concerned-looking Mr. Thwaites peered at Rosalind from behind tiny, round spectacles.
    “No, Mr. Thwaites,” she said flatly. “I am perfectly content this morning.”
    He visibly relaxed, though he appeared not to believe her. “Good to hear. Good to hear, my lady.” He gestured to the book. “Will you be purchasing the book?”
    Rosalind pushed it toward him with a sigh.
    “Shal I list this on your credit, my lady?” She nodded absentmindedly, her eyes drifting back to the door. After Mr. Thwaites finished recording her transaction, she mumbled her thanks, politely inquired after Mrs. Thwaites, then yanked the book into her arms before shuffling to the door.
    She sighed, hefting the book in her grasp. Glaring down at it, she had the fleeting thought that should she meet Nicholas Kincaid on the street, she’d very gladly wall op him with it.
    What a smashing day it was turning out to be. She had become the object of an idiotic wager that was nothing more than a flagrant waste of time, she had an appointment with her brother that most likely included dire warnings about meddling, she’d made a fool of herself in front of the man she loved—who’d admonished her as if she’d been but a child, and now she found herself saddled with a two-stone book that she had to carry all the way home and would most definitely never read.
    As she neared the windows of the shop, a splattering of raindrops dotted the glass. Outside, her maid, Alice, appeared to be choking their umbrel a. In another second, the thing fell apart in her hands. The girl looked up to see Rosalind through the window and lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug.
    Wonderful. The day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

Chapter 2
    “Y ou’ve hired me a nursemaid?”
    Using every ounce of self-restraint, Rosalind managed to remain seated across from her eldest brother—and not surge upright and stomp her foot like the child he clearly believed her to be.
    Gabriel leaned back in his chair and eyed Rosalind with a gaze as frosty blue and unyielding as her own.
    “Not a nursemaid exactly .”
    “Then tell me, what is the difference? You say I am to be watched, looked after, that if ever a circumstance arose in which I need assistance, I am simply to call out and some unnamable brute shal spring forth from the shadows to come to my aid.”
    “He is to be your guardian,” Gabriel replied in his usual impervious manner. “Unseen and unheard.
    There will be no contact, unless of course a predicament occurs.”
    “I’ve managed to survive this long on my own.”
    “That was before the damnable wager,” he nearly shouted.
    Grabbing the folded copy of the Morning Post from his desk, he tossed it in her direction, where it flopped open of its own accord to the very page that had managed to send him into a near rage this morning.
    Rosalind turned away from the article. She had no wish to read