Unbefitting a Lady Read Online Free Page A

Warbourne. She saw something in him others had not. After seeing the
stables, Bram was starting to think there might be something to that. He was
itching to get his hands on that colt.
    Phaedra faced him squarely. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, Mr
Basingstoke. You’re here to help Anderson. Warbourne is mine. I don’t need your help.’
    Bram tossed her a smile. ‘Of course you don’t.’ He’d not
expected her to say otherwise. But that didn’t mean it was true. She would need
him before they were through in one way or another.

Chapter Three
    L ady Phaedra Montague was a haughty minx,
but that was part of her charm. His intuition about women was seldom wrong and
his first impressions from the auction had been correct. Bram was still
chuckling as he stowed his things in the small room he’d been given over the
stable block. Regardless of the hauteur she cultivated so successfully, she was
all fire. He must tread carefully.
    Bram folded a shirt and put it in the three-drawer chest in the
corner. She was a duke’s daughter. He hadn’t expected that. He had expected her to be nicely situated country gentry
and gently born, but not quite so high born. One
simply didn’t open affairs with such lofty creatures. The penalties were too
high. One might tolerate facing pistols at dawn over the Mrs Fentons of the
world but there would be no scandalous pistols over Phaedra Montague. There
would only be a ring and marriage, two very permanent reminders of one’s
momentary lapse in judgement. It was probably for the best. Giles Montague was
no doubt a deadly shot when it came to his sister’s honour.
    It was too late to back out now. He’d taken this gamble on
scant knowledge, lured to it by Phaedra’s spirit and the challenge of the colt
to offset the looming boredom of six months in Derbyshire. He’d never imagined
she’d be Rothermere’s daughter. He didn’t know the duke personally, but the
peerage was not so large that a duke could escape notice. Bram knew of Rothermere but no more.
    Still, he could leave whenever he chose if he didn’t like how
things progressed. He wasn’t reliant on the position for a wage or a reference.
He could vanish in the night and no one would be the wiser. As long as he
dressed the part...
    Bram studied the items in the drawer—three linen shirts and two
waistcoats from London’s finest tailors. They simply wouldn’t do for stable
work. He’d have to go down to the village and look for ready-made work clothes.
He’d also have to see about making arrangements to discreetly retrieve his trunk
from the inn in Buxton too. It was unmistakably a gentleman’s travelling trunk
and would have raised too many questions. There’d been only time to stop by the
inn on the way out of town and pack a quick valise. Even that had been tricky
since the inn had been in close proximity to the luxurious Crescent area of
Buxton, expensive quarters for a man looking for work.
    Bram shut the drawer. What did he care if he was caught? The
scandal would serve his father right. There was an irony to it. He’d been sent
away to avoid further scandal, not to foment it. His father would die a thousand
social deaths if it became known his son had taken employment as a groom in a
duke’s household and lived above the stables with the other grooms and male
workers. He didn’t want to get caught too soon though, not before he had a
chance to see if the colt could be tamed—or Phaedra Montague for that
matter.
    A heavy footfall at the door caused him to straighten. He had
company. He half expected it to be Phaedra. ‘So, you’re the one who has come to
replace me.’ The voice was thick with the broad sounds of Derbyshire, the sounds
of a man who’d grown up here all his life and wandered very little, a man who
would see assistance as an intrusion.
    ‘Not to replace you, to help you.
For a while,’ Bram said in friendly tones. He strode forward, his hand
outstretched. ‘You must be Anderson.’ The