The Pleasure of Bedding a Baroness Read Online Free

back his hair, Max went outside to the yellow hackney chaise that still waited at the curb. The driver was assisting one of the house servants with his fare’s trunks. Max went up to the door of the vehicle, but discovered it to be locked. Knocking, he said, “Open the door, girl! Your mistress wants you.”
    A white, frightened face appeared at the window.
    After the departure of her sister, Pru had sat in the carriage, torn between a genuine desire to stay in the comfort and safety of the carriage while Patience dealt with the problem, and an equally genuine desire to defy her sister and go up to the house. Her mind had been made up for her when the doors of the house were suddenly flung open and what seemed like hundreds of bizarre-looking characters came running out. The hackney carriage was an attractive object to them. They clustered around it, hammering on the doors, shouting drunkenly and pressing their sweaty faces against the glass to leer at Pru.
    The driver, fortunately, had the presence of mind to lock the doors, thus protecting his passenger. Taking out his club, he began beating them back. Terrified the mob would break the glass, Pru flung herself down on the seat with her arms over her face. After what seemed like an eternity, they appeared to give up, and drifted off into the night.
    “Unlock the door,” Max repeated, giving her a smile of encouragement. She was a very pretty girl, he had noticed, with big green eyes, fine skin, and black curls.
    Pru stared at him through the glass. He seemed normal enough, if a trifle disheveled. His skin was very brown, in sharp contrast to his eyes, which were a pale gray. His hair was very black and unruly. He wasn’t handsome, she decided. His mouth was too wide and his nose was too big. But he was tall and well-built with broad shoulders and long legs. He had an attractive smile. Hesitantly, she unlocked the door. He had it open immediately.
    “Wh-who are you?” she asked, staring at him.
    “I’m Purefoy,” he told her simply. Taking her around the waist, he set her on the ground.
    His manner was so forthright that she instinctively trusted him. “Were you caught in the riot, sir?” she asked.
    He glanced down at her. She wasn’t just pretty, he realized. She was truly a beauty. A trifle small, perhaps, but well-formed. And those eyes! A man could lose himself in their brilliant green depths. “Riot?” he said, amused. “I suppose it did look like a riot, everyone running away at once. People are such cowards,” he added, but without rancor. “At the first sign of trouble, off they go.”
    “What did the mob want?”
    “What mobs always want,” he said, drawing her smoothly up the steps to the house. “Something for nothing! Anyway, they are gone now. We need not concern ourselves with them. I’m sorry if they frightened you, Miss ... ?”
    “Waverly,” she said promptly. “Miss Prudence Waverly.”
    “Good God!” Max uttered. “I thought you were Lady Waverly’s maid! You are her relation?”
    “Well, of all the nerve!” cried Pru, stamping her foot. “Did Patience tell you I was her maid ? Oh! She may be my guardian for the moment, but I’m not her servant! I’m her sister !”
    Max bit his lip. At that moment he would have preferred dealing with an irate husband or an angry tiger, for that matter. Anything but the tears of a distraught sister would have been less of a blow to his conscience. “I’m very sorry, Miss Waverly,” he said contritely. “I don’t want you to worry, but it seems that your sister has—has been—has been taken ill. Well, not ill exactly. It is all my fault!”
    To his surprise, she laid a comforting hand on his arm. “Oh, no, sir!” she said softly. “You mustn’t blame yourself. My sister has been ill for two months. She was horribly seasick the whole time we were on the ship, and she’s still very weak.”
    “You’ve just arrived from—from America?” he guessed, correctly identifying her