Patrica Rice Read Online Free Page B

opportunity as it was offered.
    A groan from Damien made her look up from her ruminations to discover where his thoughts had strayed. When she saw he’d covered his eyes with his hand, she glanced out the window.
    Strangers sat on her doorstep. Not elegant strangers, although she couldn’t imagine even Damien’s rakish friends stooping to sitting on a doorstep. These men wore round hats and garish waistcoats and smug grins as the carriage approached. They very much seemed to be waiting for them. Melanie sent Damien a questioning look.
    “The cent percenters,” he groaned. “They’ve come to collect already. Someone at the papers must have tipped them off. I’m sorry, Melanie. I’d meant to fob them off a while longer so you wouldn’t need to see them.”
    “Oh, you mean loan sharks!” She looked out the window with curiosity at the smug, smiling faces grinning up at them. One man had a nose that looked as if someone must have battered it extensively. Another had a decidedly ugly red scar down the side of his face. Despite their smiling exteriors, she feared these were very rough men, indeed. “Well, I suppose it’s too late to visit the bankers. You will have to tell them to send their bills ‘round to my solicitor in the morning.”
    Damien gave her a look of amazement. “You don’t even know the extent of my debt. Why should you pay what you do not owe for someone who isn’t really your husband?”
    “Do you gamble?” she asked with upraised brows.
    “With what?” he asked dryly. “With my life, with my good name, with my family’s reputation? Yes, I do that. But with money? I haven’t any.”
    “Then once these debts are paid, we’ll have only our living expenses, won’t we? It seems fair trade to me. Your time must be worth a great deal, and I mean to claim a good lot of it while I can.”
    “You make me feel lower than a snake’s belly,” he growled, flinging open the door. “Stay inside while I clear this lot away.”
    With a few curt words he had them scattering. Damien had a very forceful way about him when called upon, Melanie noted with almost as much satisfaction as trepidation. She had always thought of him as something of an elegant rattle, but he’d changed these last years. She’d encountered him once or twice in the village when he visited his family, but she’d not really noticed the changes until now. When he returned to lift her from the carriage, her heart did a strange little flip-flop inside her chest.
    “I’m sorry to have embarrassed you like that, Melanie. I meant for your first day in London to be special.”
    He didn’t murmur the words softly and sweetly in her ear but announced them coldly, as if by keeping his distance he could pretend they came from someone else. She thought he meant them. He just didn’t want to admit it to himself. She didn’t know what to make of that, so she ignored it all.
    “I can’t remember ever having more fun,” she said sincerely as they entered the house. “I feel like a fairy princess with a dashing prince for escort.”
    He gave her a flicker of a smile as he helped her with her pelisse. “Perhaps you ought to just keep me about for storybook time and pretend I’m not here otherwise. We might rub along quite well that way.”
    She frowned as she tried to determine the meaning behind that. She knew her own parents went their own ways most of the time. The only time she ever saw them in the same room together was when they entertained, or at dinner occasionally. They each had their own friends and pastimes. She had neither. Perhaps that’s what he was telling her: he had friends and interests that he would pursue when she didn’t want him around. She supposed she couldn’t expect him to always be at her beck and call.
    She didn’t have time to dwell on this discovery. Mr. Watson, the caretaker, had hurried up to take their walking sticks and Melanie’s pelisse. “The others are awaiting your convenience, my lord, my