The Mischievous Miss Murphy Read Online Free

she had no trouble recognizing the difference. The Marquess of Coniston was a gentleman, and would be one even if stripped of his title.
    That he was also quite the handsomest man she had ever met did not weigh with her, she told herself emphatically, and had nothing to do with her uncharacteristic objection to Max’s customary shabby treatment of people whom he had deemed to have served out their usefulness to him.
    She couldn’t explain her actions; she only knew that now that Max had left them alone, she hadn’t the faintest notion of what to say to the man.
    When the silence became noticeable, Tony tried once more to gain a toehold in the door, so to speak, as a step toward ingratiating himself with Candie.
    After all, it was plaguey difficult to bed a chit when they weren’t even on speaking terms. Max’s none too subtle message of hands-off Tony could accept as only a minor stumbling block in his pursuit of the niece. He would just have to deal directly with her, a distasteful circumstance, what with plain talk of payment for services rendered and such, but it certainly wouldn’t set a precedent in Coniston’s dealings with females of her ilk.
    Besides, why would Murphy have left them alone together if he hadn’t been engineering an alliance between the two of them?
    If Candie, who had been busy calling herself every kind of fool while at the same time racking her brain for something sensible to say to end the silence, had been privy to Tony’s thought processes, she would have found her tongue with a vengeance. Because, contrary to what the Marquess believed, although she was of an age when most of her contemporaries were married, she herself could not boast of ever having so much as a single beau.
    Her uncle had protected her fiercely from the time she had turned fourteen, and when her appearance, formerly thin and rather gawky, had turned soft and curvy, Max had no longer been able to dress her in pants and have anyone believe she was his nephew.
    Fortunately for both Tony’s aspirations and Candie’s romantic dreams, the Marquess, taking note of Candie’s show of shyness (surely a sign that she had at some time trodden the boards), decided to play along, taking the slow approach. To this end he suggested a return visit the next day, when hopefully her uncle would be more himself.
    “Uncle Max is always himself,” Candie quipped, her happiness at the thought of seeing the Marquess again freeing her frozen tongue. “That’s what’s so distressing.”
    Tony smiled his understanding and then, sobering slightly, asked, “You won’t go taking French leave or anything, will you? I mean, I’d hate to come back here tomorrow to find your uncle had decided to do a flit?” The unaccustomed stab of unease—for the Marquess of Coniston was never uneasy—surprised Tony as much as it delighted Candie, who saw this as a sign of his interest in her.
    “Good Lord, no. We may have been in a bit of a pucker when first you saw us this morning, but Max has righted us, as usual, and we are settled now at least until winter. And as Max says, ‘Never dread the winter until the snow is on the blanket’—which means I should not worry my head unless there is no roof above it. I refuse to concern myself about what we shall do then until the time comes.”
    She shrugged, looking for a moment to be no more than a child, and then smiled, saying philosophically, “With Max, one must learn to simply relax and follow his lead. He’s not steered us wrong yet.”
    “He plays the cards as they are dealt, does he?” Tony opined, feeling a grudging respect for the gamester, and then, bowing from the waist, he took his leave of Miss Candice Murphy, promising to return before noon the next day.
    As he walked to the corner, hoping to flag down a passing hackney, Tony smiled knowingly. Let’s see how cold old Maximilien is when I arrive at his door bearing gifts, he thought evilly, visions of Max delivering his niece to him on