Tempting a Proper Lady Read Online Free Page A

Baileys and Raventhorpe entered.
    Samuel stood and offered his seat to Dolly. Cillarose as well and started to leave the room, attempting to give them privacy.
    â€œStay, Mrs. Burke,” Virgil said as he took his chair behind his desk.
    Cilla paused, then took up a post near the door. Raventhorpe escorted Annabelle to Cilla’s vacated chair, then stood behind it. Samuel lingered beside Dolly’s chair, though he noticed she would not look at him.
    â€œWe have a problem,” Virgil said, glancing from Samuel to Raventhorpe. “Both of you claim the right to marry my girl.”
    â€œSurely you will not entertain this madness,” the earl said.
    Samuel ignored Raventhorpe. Instead he kept his gaze on the man he had thought would be his father-in-law. The steady gray eyes that had always looked at him with such understanding, now reflected the hard steel of displeasure.
    â€œMadness or not, she did accept me first,” Samuel said.
    â€œThat she did,” Virgil agreed. “But then you left on that sea voyage and never came back to her. You ran off to live a new life, free of responsibility.”
    â€œThat’s a lie!” Samuel took a step forward. “You know me. You know that once I make a promise, I keep it.”
    Virgil’s expression did not soften. “Then where the hell were you, boy?”
    â€œMarooned on an island in the Caribbean.”
    â€œMarooned!” Dolly exclaimed, glancing at him with astonishment.
    â€œYou expect us to believe that?” Virgil said.
    â€œIt’s the truth.” Samuel jerked his head at Raventhorpe. “Ask him. He’s the one who left me there.”
    â€œLord Raventhorpe already told us what happened,” Virgil said. “You left the ship in the middle of the voyage because the two of you argued. And we all know what your temper’s like.”
    Samuel looked from one face to the other, his gut knotting at the lack of forgiveness in their eyes. “In all the years you’ve known me, you honestly believe I would abandon ship over a quarrel?”
    â€œThe rest of the crew backs up his story. Like I said, we do know you, and you can be a real hothead sometimes.”
    â€œIf only you’d written or come home to us to tell us what had happened,” Dolly said. “We would have understood. We knew you took the job on Lord Raventhorpe’s ship to earn some money to start your life together. Annabelle would have waited for you if you’d just told us the truth. But disappearing like that…” She shook her head. “Shameful.”
    â€œAnd cowardly.”
    Samuel shot his gaze to Virgil’s. “I am no coward, sir.”
    â€œYou never used to be.” The older man narrowed his eyes. “We loved you like you were one of ours, boy, but what you did to our baby is not the act of any man I want for a son.”
    â€œWhy did you wait so long to come home to us?” Dolly asked. “We waited for you. Especially Annabelle.”
    â€œThe timing is obvious to me,” Raventhorpe said.“Clearly it was your change in financial circumstances that brought him back.”
    â€œIs that it, son?” Virgil asked. “Is it about the money?”
    â€œOf course it is,” Raventhorpe insisted. “Annabelle was a poor farmer’s daughter when he left, but now she is an heiress. It all makes perfect sense.”
    Samuel fought to speak past the pain burning in his chest. “It’s not about the money. I don’t care if she’s rich now. None of you are hearing what I’m saying.”
    â€œWe hear you,” Virgil said. “But you’re telling us that Lord Raventhorpe, an English lord with blood bluer than the sky, left you stranded on some deserted island just so he could marry Annabelle. Aside from the fact that that’s just crazy since he didn’t even know Annabelle at the time, you’ve got to agree that it’s a