Kasey Michaels Read Online Free

He bounded out of the coach only in time to observe the young woman, now minus both clogs, effortlessly vaulting onto the back of one of two horses that obviously had been following close behind the coach. With a yell to the person holding the reins to “follow me!” she was gone.
    As exits went, this one was fairly dramatic, even if Simon did not consider the fact that the damned stocking-clad female had mounted the horse without bothering to use the stirrups, landing astride on its back, and all with a fluid grace many of his male acquaintance would envy.
    As it was, all he could do was watch as the two horses wheeled and sped away. He then approached his groom, who was still wiping sleep from his eyes as he cowered in the boot, and sweetly inquired of him if he hadn’t thought it bloody odd that a man riding one bloody horse and leading another had been bloody following the bloody coach ever since they’d bloody left London ?
    The clogs, that had somehow ended up in Simon’s hands, had gone winging into the trees lining the roadway, one following closely after the other during the course of his questioning of the footman, both shoes flung away in some heat, and with impressive force.
    “Milord?” the groom exclaimed, visibly wilting under Simon’s rare physical exertion, his even rarer verbal attack. “Oi thought they wuz yours, m’lord.”
    Simon pushed himself back under control. He even smiled. “Mine? Mine . Oh, I see now Mine. Of course you did. Forgive me for not realizing that, seeing as how I often have two rented nags tagging along behind my coach, in the slim chance I might wish to take a ride between Curzon Street and Portland Place.” He turned back to the coach. “Take me home, Hardwick, if you please,” he ordered wearily, knowing that he had probably seen the last of the mysterious young woman.
    It was only the discovery of a small, crumpled white handkerchief on the floor of the coach that served to cheer Viscount Brockton at all. A small white handkerchief embroidered—fairly clumsily—with the letter “C.” He raised it to his nostrils to find that it smelt of lavender and horse—and bread and butter.
    Still holding the handkerchief, Simon drew down all the shades and began searching the coach. He soon espied a stale crust of buttered bread wedged into a fold of the velvet squabs. He picked it up, gingerly holding it between thumb and index finger, eyeing it owlishly.
    And then he smiled again, a slow, lazy smile that grew to all but split his face. He even, much to the surprise and consternation of both Hardwick and the groom, laughed aloud. Aloud, and long, and hard.
    “What cheek! I’ve got to find her,” he said at last, talking to himself. “She spent the time waiting to shoot me by having herself a bloody picnic.” He shook his head even as he sighed contentedly, then stretched out his long legs on the facing seat and crossed them at the ankle, a gentleman once more feeling fully at his ease.
    “God, now I have to find her,” he mused aloud, chuckling low in his throat as he drew the handkerchief beneath his fine, aristocratic nose once more. “Armand will positively adore the chit!”

There is a Spanish proverb, which says
    justly, tell me whom you live with,
    and I will tell you who you are.
    —Earl of Chesterfield
    Chapter Two
    P ortland Place was located in a most advantageous area of London and populated by some of the ton ’s most interesting and powerful personages. Admiral Lord Radstock resided at Number Ten and Sir Ralph Milbanke, father of the woman who had married and then cast off George Gordon, Lord Byron, resided at Number Sixty-three. And then there was, of course, Simon Roxbury, the Viscount Brockton, who, along with his widowed mother, made the elegant mansion at Number Forty-nine his principal place of residence during the Season.
    There were certain drawbacks to Portland Place at the moment, thanks to the Prince Regent’s penchant for building, and