His Californian Countess Read Online Free Page A

Helena. You must be wary of Gowery. More wary even than you were. He is not what he seems.”
    Amber decided not to argue names or intentions at that point. “Yes. Certainly,” she told him in her gentlest tone. “Put all that from your mind. Right now you must get to your bed. Let me help you.” She might well have saved her breath for he seemed to lapse into sleep. She tried to tug him upward, but he was dead weight. Kindness had failed…“Listen to me, you large galoot. Sit. Up.”
    “Yes, Mimm,” he answered and rolled up onto his knees. “I’m hot, Mimm. I’m so hot.” He dragged himself to his feet with help from her. Once standing, he looked in her eyes. “Goodness, Mimm, you’ve shrunk. But you’re very pretty, suddenly.” He frowned. “You’re not lookin’ a bit like yourself.” Once again she heard the touch of an Irish accent in his speech and fought a smile.
    “Come…You’re not far from the bed. One foot in front of the other,” she ordered as they wove across the floor. And then his weight got the better of her and he toppled, pushing her on to the bed. Stunned, she lost her breath as he landed half on top of her. Amber tried to shift out from under his body, but no matter how she squirmed and tugged, she couldn’t get her dress free. Desperate, she pushed on his shoulder so she could take a breath. He opened his eyes and stared into hers. “You aren’t Helena.”
    “No, I’m Amber.”
    “You’re my pixie. Did you just appear there?”
    “No. You fell upon me,” Amber explained. She’d been so busy trying to help him, she’d forgotten all about the fact that the handsome man knew Helena. But her anger had cooled. He seemed to only want to help the woman she’d promised to impersonate. He’d talked as if he were an old friend of her family’s, but not a friend to Helena’s guardian.
    A knock sounded in the cabin. “Is there a problem, ma’am? I heard a shout.”
    “Oh, yes,” she called back. “I came to this man’s aid and he’s collapsed on top of me.”
    “Has the gentleman perished?” he asked, sounding suspicious.
    Her patient tried to push himself off her. “Are you my angel instead?” he asked. “Am I dead after all?” He stared at her with heartbreak in his violet eyes. “What will happen to Meara?”
    His eyelids drooped closed then and his weight pressed more heavily on her. “He’s not dead, but he is very ill,” she called the man at the door. “I just need help to get up, then we can summon the ship’s surgeon.”
    “You’ll have to extricate yourself,” the man at the door shouted. “I am a minister—Reverend Willis. I will pray for the man, but I fall ill very easily. I shall go find the doctor, though.”
    “Then find him quickly, for God’s sake!” she shouted back, though she had to admit it came out like more of a croak, what with a man’s weight all but crushing her.
    In the next moment, she managed to twist herself free, but her skirts were still trapped under him. So there she sat, showing more ankle than she had since she was in short skirts, but at least she was no longer trapped.
    The doctor bustled in, wearing a rumpled light-colored suit of clothes and dingy waistcoat, his face bearded, a pair of glasses perched on his florid nose. And enough alcohol on his breath to knock out a room full of sailors. “What is this about a woman of ill repute trapped under a sick man? And why didn’t I know you were available?”
    “How dare you!” Amber gasped and stared at him in speechless horror. Then she took a deep breath, trying to get hold of her anger. From the other girls at Vassar she’d learned that disdain got a woman further than anger. Amber notched her chin higher and tried to look down her nose at the man who stood half a head taller than her. “I am nothing of the sort!” She shook with rage inside, but explained in a cold haughty voice how events had transpired.
    The doctor nodded and walked around behind her.