Let Me Be The One Read Online Free

wide for him to remain at her side. He was conscious of the path's gentle dips and rocky inclines in a way he would not have been if his partner had been hale. "Are you staying with our hosts?" he asked.
    "Yes. I came ahead two weeks before they did. Louise and Harrison are not fond of rusticating in the country, even in the halcyon days of summer. It was my pleasure to see that all was in order before they arrived."
    "I understand you are Rosemont's daughter."
    Elizabeth did not mistake this comment as a non sequitur. She followed the line of his reasoning. "You think it is odd that the baron and baroness would engage me in such a manner?"
    "I did not assume they hired you for such tasks as readying their home for their arrival, but yes, you are in the right of it that I find it peculiar you would be traveling with them and not occupied similarly with your own father's estates."
    "My father has my stepmother to offer companionship and counsel. My younger brother is there to get underfoot. Father has never raised any objection to the time I spend away from home."
    North did not miss the coolness in her voice. It was the singular lack of affect that gave her words chilling preciseness. He did not know what it meant and he didn't press. He filed it away for examination in a private moment. "My invitation is for a fortnight," he said.
    "I know." She looked at him askance, the merest smile lifting the corners of her mouth. "I wrote it."
    He laughed. "So you do their correspondence also."
    "The baroness will tell you that she is hopelessly muddle-headed when it comes to organizing her affairs. Battenburn had a Mr. Alexander who managed small concerns for him, but he has since gone on and I have gladly taken on those duties."
    "You are an unpaid companion."
    "More like a daughter," Elizabeth corrected him. "I am regarded as family. They have no children."
    Since neither the baron nor baroness had reached their fortieth year, children were not strictly out of the question. Northam supposed that Elizabeth was privy to circumstances of a personal nature explaining why the couple, at least fifteen years into their marriage, remained childless. "I do not know either of them well. The invitation was unexpected."
    "But welcome," Elizabeth said.
    "How do you arrive at that conclusion?"
    "Why, the fact that you responded favorably. Your absence last evening, along with that of your friend Viscount Southerton, caused some consternation and the last-minute rearrangement of the seating, but you are here now, so one might reasonably conclude that you welcomed the invitation."
    "I welcomed the diversion. There is a difference."
    She understood that very well. It was the difference between running to and running from. What she did not understand was why the Earl of Northam was sharing that with her. Judging by his subsequent silence, his lordship was wondering much the same thing.
    Elizabeth lifted her face to the sun moments before a stand of trees blocked its heat and light. Her bonnet was lying on the ground not far from her case of watercolors and brushes. She had no illusions that her fair skin was not pinkening, but she was supremely unconcerned by it. More bothersome was the pain in her hip. She paused in her awkward stride and felt Northam stop, immediately solicitous.
    "Shall I fetch a chair for you?" he asked. "Your stool?"
    She could only imagine how foolish she would look sitting at the stream's edge in a straight-backed chair, once again calling attention to her infirmity. "No, thank you. If you will but give me a moment, I only require—"
    Elizabeth halted, her breath seized as Northam bent and lifted her. He held her against his chest, her legs dangling over one forearm while the other cradled her back. She blinked at him owlishly, dark amber eyes startled at first, then faintly accusing.
    "It is only a short distance to those rocks," he said calmly. "You could put your arms around my neck."
    "I could put my hands around your