The Black Sheep's Return Read Online Free

accounted for this feeling she could finally relax and let a gentleman take care of her. It had been a very trying day, she assured herself, and she was probably wishing the world was how she wanted it to be. If she got through the night in one piece, no doubt it would lurch back to its proper order by morning. For now it felt oddly pleasant to be borne along in a strong man’s arms. She could feel powerful muscles and sinews few gentlemen of her acquaintance could boast as she settled against his broad shoulder with a contented sigh.
    ‘There,’ he said at last, as he rounded whatseemed a deliberately serpentine last twist in the path and the faint glow of a small curtained window made her open her eyes wider. ‘As well it was no further, perhaps, or you would have been fast asleep,’ he whispered as he shifted her to open his door.
    ‘What a cosy room,’ she managed sincerely as she took in the still-glowing fire and companionable-looking chairs on either side of the fire.
    Clearly his wife had gone to bed and that was why he was murmuring, for fear of waking her after a long day of hard work. She admired his consideration and let herself envy his lady for a moment, surprised how appealing the notion of being cared for by a very masculine husband at the end of a tiring day seemed to someone who’d never done a hard day’s work in her life.
    ‘It could do with being a little larger. With myself and Atlas to accommodate, one of us always ends up a little too far from the fire for comfort,’ he said and gently set her down in the smaller chair before she could demand to get there on her own one foot and a stick.
    ‘It seems truly comfortable to me,’ she admitted as she shivered at the idea of all thatlay outside this warm room and how deeply uncomfortable her day had been so far.
    ‘We can argue about that when we try to decide how to find you a respectable place to sleep in such a confined space later,’ he told her as he sank to his knees in front of her and insisted on removing her stained shoe.
    He gave her an impatient look when she batted his hand away from her torn stocking and insisted on undoing her own garter after he turned his back.
    ‘Done?’ he asked irritably and stared into the fire as if it annoyed him nearly as much as his uninvited guest.
    ‘Yes,’ she admitted, once she wasn’t biting her lip to conceal how much that small movement hurt her.
    ‘Good, now let me have a proper look at it,’ he said, as if mentally girding his loins for an unpleasant task. ‘This will probably hurt, but I would be grateful if you could manage not to scream, since my children are asleep upstairs. They would normally sleep through cannonfire, but I doubt a lady screeching at the top of her voice could fail to wake them and I don’t need more complications.’
    So he had children, did he? He’d made no mention of his wife so it seemed likely he wasa widower and she went back to wondering if she was as safe after all. Yet there was no air of menace to this man such as she had felt so terrifyingly earlier today from the highwaymen and, once or twice, on the dance floors of Mayfair when a so-called gentleman insisted on brushing too close as they moved through the figures of the dance together. This man might not overtly threaten a young lady’s honour, but he had surprising presence for the rough woodsman his clothes, cottage and everything but his voice proclaimed him to be. He sank to his knees in front of her again and she was determined to show him not all ladies screeched and fainted at the slightest provocation, or even, she revised with a muffled gasp, quite a lot of provocation.
    He had dark-gold hair, she catalogued desperately, as the sickening pain of having her injury even this gently prodded surged through her with an oily chill. There was a touch of auburn to it in the firelight and it made for a distinctive contrast with the darkness of his brows and the golden tan of an outdoorsman under