Master of Sin Read Online Free Page B

hard on Marc. If I disappear, he’ll only get worse.”
    Andrew looked for his new watch in his pocket, but it had played a part in the negotiations with the MacLarens and it was still on the kitchen dresser. “You have known my son all of two hours, Miss Peartree. Three at the most. I hardly think he’ll miss your influence.”
    â€œYou’d be surprised. Voi come mi. You like me, don’t you, love?”
    â€œ Ti amo .” Marc gave her a sloppy kiss and giggled.
    Insupportable. That this absolute hoyden had won his child over in a matter of hours when he had worked weeks for a smile. He pointed at his chest and then at Marc. “ Ti amo ,” Andrew repeated. Marc shook his head and stuck a finger in his mouth.
    â€œ Abasso il . You’ll make your teeth all crooked and not grow up to be as handsome as your papa,” she said, tickling him under his chin. She turned to Andrew, all business, as though she’d just not shamelessly flattered him. He knew he was not looking his best. There were many reasons. Two of them stood before him. “I’ve just come to tell you that the old witch and her husband will bring a crib for Marc tomorrow. Do you want him to sleep in your bed tonight or in mine?”
    â€œSince you are temporarily serving as his nursemaid, he may sleep with you.” Andrew had woken up urine soaked several nights running. Let her discover Marc’s little problem on her own. The child was masterful at removing his diaper well before dawn.
    â€œVery well. I’m going to put him down for an afternoon nap.”
    â€œI thought you said you had nowhere to sleep.”
    â€œThat was because Mrs. MacLaren locked all the bedrooms when she left.”
    â€œShe what?”
    â€œShe locked the doors and took all the keys with her. I had to sleep on the couch in the front parlor, and may I suggest you replace it at the first opportunity? It smells dreadfully of damp.”
    Just wait until Miss Peartree smelled Marc. “Has she unlocked them now?”
    â€œOh, yes. She seems resigned to me being here. If I understand her correctly, she believes if children and dogs like one, then one is worthy.”
    Andrew waited to laugh until Miss Peartree left the library. Once he started, he had trouble stopping. He had gone mad, but he feared he was in good company.
    Â 
    Gemma brushed the hair from little Marc’s damp forehead. His temperature was not quite right, but children could quickly spike a fever and return to normal in the blink of an eye. He had eaten well, and now he rested in her Spartan room. She wished she could do the same, but she was a bundle of nerves, startling each time the hail hit the window glass. The ocean roared below, which added to the ominous ambiance of Gull House. During the fourteen days’ hideous weather she’d actually seen—and eaten—fish thrown up to the grass by the force of the waves. Waiting for the Rosses to arrive had been beastly, but she was very much afraid their arrival was even worse.
    She could not like Mr. Andrew Ross, which was just as well as he seemed to dislike her. She knew she’d made a very bad first impression. She wasn’t beautiful or elegant or charming like her Italian mother, or as cultured and correct as her Austrian stepfather. And of course, she was absolutely nothing like her English father—that went without saying. If she didn’t know better from her old nursemaid Caterina, she would have believed she’d been switched at birth by gypsies or elves or whichever creatures did such things to innocent babies. She was as good as a changeling, orphaned, homeless, and adrift in the Atlantic.
    But she was no longer innocent.
    She caught sight of herself in the freckled mirror and rolled her eyes. She was not merely adrift—she had drowned and sunk to the bottom of the sea. If she weren’t such a coward she’d climb down the beach path and plunge in