Sex and the Single Earl Read Online Free Page A

“Oh, go to the blazes, you pompous ass!” Spinning on her heel, Sophie stalked past a stunned Yates. Glancing over her shoulder, she felt a surge of satisfaction at Simon’s outraged look.
    Well, he deserved to feel her temper. And at least this time, she had truly gotten the last word.
     
    Simon made a point of always knowing what he wanted, and what he wanted right now was to haul Sophie into his aunt’s drawing room, pull her across his lap, and paddle her round little bottom. Naturally, being the disciplined man that he was, he controlled the impulse.
    After a brusque nod to Yates, Simon strode back to the waiting hackney and directed the driver to take him to his bank in High Street. Perhaps he could have taken a few minutes to call on his aunts, but he had no intention of facing them—or Sophie, for that matter—until his temper had regained its normal equilibrium.
    He muttered under his breath, recalling the way she had glared down her small, straight nose at him, spectacles askew across her flushed cheeks. How did the exasperating little thing always manage to make him lose his temper? She’d been doing it for years, and he found himself no closer to an answer. He must be insane for even contemplating what he was about to do.
    But then he thought of her pretty eyes and the sadness in them when she told him about her bracelet, and the familiar, almost primitive urge to protect her swam up to the surface.
    Sophie had wonderful eyes—amber, shot through with flecks of green—and they sparkled with whatever emotion she felt at the time. Spectacles usually hid their depths, but Simon had learned to ignore the gold frames long ago.
    Her few suitors had called her an angel or, even more extravagantly, a fairy queen. For an angel, though, Sophie could be appallingly bad-tempered, a character flaw he’d been aware of since the day he had pulled her from the lake on General Stanton’s estate.
    She had been twelve at the time, rowing in a small boat near the shore with her brother Robert, giggling and shrieking with the annoying high spirits so often displayed by girls of her age. Simon had just returned from a hard ride across the downs, passing by the lake on his way back to the house. When Sophie stood up to call to him, the boat had rolled, tipping the girl and her brother into the lake. Robert had popped up immediately, but Sophie slipped under the surface of the water.
    Simon’s heart had seized with fear when he saw her bright mop of auburn hair disappear from view. But he threw himself into the lake and found her immediately, cradling her against him as he swam to the nearby shore.
    After she had recovered, Sophie had been mortified. When he tried to cheer her up, telling her she looked like a drowned rat, she stared at him with red-rimmed, unblinking eyes. Then she lashed out and kicked him—actually kicked him—in the shins. It had hurt too, since he had pulled his boots off before diving in, and her sturdy half-boots were heavy with water. She pulled herself from his arms and stomped off to the house, her little stick figure rigid with fury.
    Sophie was definitely more sprite than angel, and he’d acquired several bruises from her over the years to prove it.
    The carriage came to a halt before his bank. He absently paid off the driver, his mind returning to the problem of Sophie and her bracelet. In spite of what she thought, he did understand what the loss of her trinket meant to her. After all, he had helped Robert pick the damn thing out not a month after her father died. But he wouldn’t allow her to risk her safety or her reputation, for any reason. This latest episode provided ample evidence that she simply couldn’t be trusted to take care of herself.
    Sophie would balk at his interference, but she’d have to get used to it. He’d come all the way to Bath with the firm intention of wedding her, and even though he wanted—no, needed —her lands, that didn’t mean they couldn’t have an