The Reluctant Earl Read Online Free Page B

deep blue stare. Oh, he remembered her, all right, but where pity had lingered this afternoon, anger now burned, scorching her cheeks with its heat.
    His gaze traveled the length of her homely gown until it focused on the incriminating note at her feet. “However, I can’t imagine why my personal correspondence should be of such interest to a governess—unless you sought to escape certain spinsterhood by entrapping me in marriage.”
    “Of course not!”
    “Oh? You are in my bedchamber, Miss Vance.” Lord Chambelston studied her below eyelids that drifted down to a lazy, dangerous half-mast.
    “Don’t be absurd. No one would force you into wedlock to defend the honor of a mere governess.”
    “Then if it is not marriage you seek, perhaps another arrangement? It won’t work, you know. I am not so green as to be tricked into matrimony nor so desperate as to need a...provincial governess for feminine company.”
    A plain governess, he meant. Too late, Leah realized she should have agreed to his first suggestion, no matter how preposterous and ridiculous. And obnoxious. Better to feed his conceit than let him guess the truth.
    But he already had, were she to judge by the cold hard smile that twisted on his mouth below the proud edge of his aquiline nose. “Not an illicit affair, either? Then if you haven’t designs on my name or my person, I can only assume you want something else from me. Information, perhaps?”
    “What information could you possibly have of interest to a provincial governess, my lord? A correct French conjugation? The proper stitch for an embroidery sampler? Beethoven’s latest piano sonata?”
    “Or the details about the government’s response to the recent troubles sweeping across the country?” Despite the stillness on his jaw, his eyes blazed blue fury as he leaned forward.
    She retreated an involuntary step before she realized what she was doing. She steeled her spine, but her heart yet pounded in her chest. Could he hear it? “What would a mere provincial governess know or care about world affairs?”
    “Come now, Miss Vance. As I recall, you were present when I told Lizzie I’d come not to see her, but her husband. Surely you don’t expect me to believe one hired for her intelligence would miss the significance of that statement.”
    Leah glanced over her shoulder, but the room revealed no hidden escape. No, she was trapped by his astute deduction as surely as by his stance in front of the doorway. Her anger melded with fear and yielded resignation. How ironic—she wouldn’t have to wait until spring to worry about her future after all. She focused on the portal’s carved trim above Chambelston’s gilded head. Was this how her brother David had felt as his ship sailed into Napoleon’s fleet at Trafalgar? The stomach-churning premonition of impending doom, of waiting for the coming collision. “What do you want from me?”
    His mocking smile cut deeper into the lines around his mouth, below which the carelessly knotted cravat supported her conjectures about his lack of a valet. The snowy white linen contrasted intriguingly with the bronzed jaw that bespoke a life spent outdoors. “It seems I have you at my mercy. Do you fear for your virtue, Miss Vance?”
    His coat stretched across broad shoulders and hugged the hard form of a man accustomed to action, to exercise, even to manual labor. Authority and strength radiated from him, held in check by a weariness—a vulnerability even—that he couldn’t quite hide behind his sardonic mask. She wasn’t a small, fragile woman like her younger sister, yet he could easily overpower her if he chose. Which he wouldn’t. “No, I think not. You are a hard man, but not an evil one, my lord.”
    A fearsome stillness settled over his features. Shadows darkened the blue of his irises, concealing the emotion flickering therein. Sympathy? Bitterness? He held her stare several long moments more before he jerked his gaze away to stare at the