Improper Advances Read Online Free Page B

their livestock with adequate fodder. Lezayre parish is blessed with good farmland, and a quantity of grain leaves Ramsey port for England. Glen Auldyn used to be famous for snuff making, and some folk still grind tobacco with their hand mills.”
    His lead mine provided employment to two dozen men, but he didn’t tell her that, or point out the pair of stone gateposts marking the entrance to his future home. He didn’t want a fortune hunter to see his mining operations, or the unfinished splendor of his villa.
    But he couldn’t ignore the laborers erecting a stone bridge over the stream. Beyond them, another group shoveled gravel out of a wagon and spread it across his new drive.

    “Moghrey mie, Mainshtyr!” the stoneworkers called.
    “Good morning,” he replied. He slowed the vehicle, telling his passenger, “If I don’t stop, they’ll be offended.”
    Her gloved hands reached for his reins. “What’s your pony’s name?”
    “Fedjag. Feather, in Manx.”
    “I can walk her up and down the lane till you return,” she offered.
    “No need, I’ll only be a moment.” As Dare moved away from the gig, he looked over his shoulder.
    Mrs. Julian, regal as a princess and twice as lovely, gripped the lines with unexpected expertise, forcing him to revise his vision of her progress through Hyde Park. He left her in the provocative feathered hat and the clinging habit of bold green, which complemented her milky skin and ruddy hair. But he permitted her to drive herself along the carriageway.
    “Going to the mine?” asked Donny Corkhill. “When I saw Ned Crowe last night, his mouth was moving as fast as Auldyn stream. Said they’d hit a new vein of ore.”
    “I hadn’t heard.” If not for Mrs. Julian, he could investigate this promising development.
    His mine’s productivity couldn’t match that of the Derbyshire operations he’d inherited from his grandfather, and it might be years before excavations yielded enough income to offset the expenses. But he could offer a job to those who needed one, either here in the glen or at his smelting house in Ramsey.
    The chief benefit to him was augmenting his collection of rocks and minerals with the specimens his men pried from the underground caverns.
    Returning to the gig, Dare climbed up beside Mrs. Julian, and was assailed by that enticing aroma.
    Awareness of her swiftly seeped into him, until he felt thoroughly drenched by it. His shoulder brushed hers, and all those mad, carnal thoughts from last night resurfaced. He shoved them back down. His reluctance to have her for a tenant was at odds with his lingering desire to plunder her magnificent body.
    Directly across from his new bridge stood twin stone pillars. Driving Fedjag between them, he announced, “Croit ny Glionney—Glencroft.” He turned his head to catch her initial, unguarded reaction.
    She wouldn’t care for the cottage. He was certain of it.
    Her face revealed nothing during her silent study of the slate-roofed gray stone dwelling with twin chimneys at either end, and its adjacent barn. The boundary hedges were unruly and the surrounding meadow was overgrown.
    “So many wildflowers,” she commented with evident pleasure, before descending from the gig.
    Dare observed her lissome grace as she approached the cottage, her dark green skirt brushing the upright heads of the bellflowers and yarrow. She moved like no woman he’d ever seen, and carried herself with supreme self-assurance. Kneeling, she plucked a handful of blossoms.
    Wrenching his gaze from the queenly figure waiting for him on the doorstep, he looped the reins through the iron ring set into the stable wall.
    When he joined Mrs. Julian, she declared, “I mean to fill this place with bouquets.”
    He fitted his key into the lock and turned it. Nothing happened.
    “I hope you’ve brought the right one,” she said, casting up wide, worried eyes. Little pearly teeth clamped down upon the plump lower lip.
    Her pensive glance and wistful