Mistaken Identity (Saved By Desire 3) Read Online Free Page B

uninterestedly outside before he turned his lecherous gaze back to her.
    “I am not alone. I have Ben,” she replied.
    She began to suspect that his predatory interest in her was the reason why Lloyd wanted Ben out of the house. The thought of being at the mercy of such an odious toad as the magistrate made her feel sick.
    It wasn’t that he was old, or overweight, or suffering from offensive looks. At some point in his life, he might once have been considered a handsome man. Not now, though. Years of excess hadn’t taken their toll on his pock-marked skin. Together with his thinning hair and rather stooped build, and the fact that he was at least twenty years older than her, he was about as attractive to Jess as the dead pheasants hanging in the scullery.
    “I also have the guests,” she added desperately. “See? I am not alone.”
    “I hope your services don’t go further than providing board and the occasional meal,” Lloyd drawled as his gaze slid down the length of her. “It would be a shame to see youth tainted by such sordid endeavours, especially with your lodgers.”
    “How dare you suggest such a thing?” she demanded, outraged at the notion.
    “I am not saying you are,” he smirked; pleased at the response his baiting earned him.
    She mentally cursed when she realised he had gotten the response he had wanted – to prod her until she snapped. Determined not to let him get the better of her, she glared balefully at him and sucked in a calming breath.
    “You would know more about sordid endeavours than I,” she snapped.
    The immediate flash of anger on the magistrate’s face warned her that she had gone too far.
    “Seeing as you deal with criminals and all,” she added snidely in a rather vague attempt to take the sting out of her snipe.
    The magistrate nodded his appreciation of her play on words and smirked as he turned to study the road in front of the house.
    “I will return when your brother is home,” he warned.
    As if to show her that he didn’t believe her claims her brother was not in the house, he glanced over her shoulder into the house.
    Unfortunately, just then, a barely audible thump came from the direction of the kitchen.
    Jessica sighed and wondered if Ben wanted to go to prison. If he carried on the way he was, that was exactly where Lloyd and Carruthers would put him. To her delight, Rupert, the cat, chose that moment to push through the kitchen door.
    “Rupert,” she chided. She could have wept as she watched him prance with ultimate feline arrogance toward her. “Have you been knocking food off the table again?”
    She bent down and swept him into her arms. Having a bundle of wriggling fur between her and the magistrate made her feel a little safer. She nuzzled Rupert’s hair for a moment, and surreptitiously watched Lloyd signal to Carruthers that it was time to leave.
    “Later,” Lloyd warned briskly.
    Jessica didn’t bother to answer him and kept her attention on the cat in her arms. She waited by the door until Carruthers stepped across the threshold. He had barely cleared the doorway before she stepped back and kicked the door closed with considerably more force than necessary and slid the bolt home with a resounding thud.
    Satisfied that the magistrate had gotten the message, she wandered back to the kitchen in search of Ben, whom she hoped was now hiding.
    He wasn’t.
    He sat at the kitchen table with his crossed ankles propped up on one corner, slicing into an apple as he ate.
    “Have they gone?” he drawled nonchalantly.
    Jessica was incensed. She was physically trembling with terror yet here he was, eating without a care in the world.
    “How could you be so selfish?” Jessica asked as she dumped Rupert into Ben’s lap and snatched the knife from him.
    It wasn’t for her safety that she took it; it was for his. Right now, she was so angry with him she wondered whether a good, long, stint in gaol was just what he needed. If only to snap him out of his