Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) Read Online Free Page A

pistol-wielding pair. “No powder, no balls,” said he with pride. “Empty as me till, those pistols. Worthless as the bloody pair of you .”
    Aiming at the ceiling, Hunter tested the revelation only to prove it correct. Myles and Hunter cursed as one, and Ash began to laugh. “This farce is over,” Ash said, thinking the parson and the marriage might be as empty as the pistols, set to test the theory and see if he could escape after all.
    “Thank you McAdams, for an interesting … exchange.” Before donning his curly beaver, Ash tipped it to the “lady,” picked up his cane and headed for the door.
    McAdams’s roar behind him did not hasten his retreat, for he willed himself to remain calm. Not so, his inebriated friends, who quit the premises, faster than stones shot from a boy’s sling. “Mewling idiots,” Ash said beneath his breath as he walked sedately on.
    Then he heard a screech, a somewhat familiar sound now, and kept walking, not certain what to expect. When he cleared the door, Ash breathed a deep draft of fresh night air, felt almost sicker for it, but heaved a sigh heavy with relief at any rate. Perhaps he would be forced to suffer neither an annulment nor his guttersnipe bride’s overripe scent a minute more, if she were indeed his bride.
    His elation was short lived. No sooner had he stepped from the curb than McAdams’s henchmen carried the screaming hellcat out the door, and deposited her in his path. And there she sat, on her arse, beside a pile of horse dung, his reeking, blushing bride, Countess Arky.
    Ash shook his head, extended a hand to help her up, and she bit it. “Damnation! That will be enough,” he shouted.
    Catching his breath and scooping her into his arms, Ash carried her, surly as ever, hissing and fighting, mad as a wet cat, back to the pub, where he opened the door and threw her back inside.
    Again, he departed, and again, he breathed a tentative, though more cautious, sigh.
    “What the devil are you going to do with her?” Hunter asked as they made for Ash’s carriage at a quickened pace.
    “I just got shed of her, didn’t I?”
    “Don’t look now, but she’s catching up.”
    “Stuff it, Hunter,” Ash said. “How the bloody devil should I know what to do with her, but I can tell you one thing, strangling her ranks right up there with giving her a bath.”
    “I’m not deaf,” Larkin snapped coming up beside him. “Nor am I stupid,” she said. “He kicked me out then locked the door, by the way. I’m yours.”
    “You might have a sense of hearing, even a modicum of intelligence, I’ll grant, but do you have no sense of smell?” Ash asked. “Because I damn well wish I did not. Stand back, will you, and give a man some breathing space.”
    “What, no perfumed hanky?” said she, throwing her hips out of line and mincing like a bleedin’ fop. “I thought all the prancing dandies carried them.”
    “I do not prance. Nor am I a dandy. And the day I place a perfumed hanky under of my nose is the day I’m daft enough to bed you.”
    “Bloody hell,” Myles said. “Don’t tell me you’re not going to?”
    Ash stopped and his bride slammed into him. “He turned, stopped her from falling and regarded his friend with a growl. “Not going to what?”
    “Bed the wench, damn it,” Myles said. “You can hold your breath and keep your eyes closed, can you not?”
    “I said , ‘I CAN HEAR YOU!’” Lark kicked Myles in the shin for his crude suggestion, and Ash jumped back in time to evade a similar fate, though it was her knee she raised his way, and his stomach churned for remembering the consequences.
    Hunter stepped behind Ash, for safety’s sake, and chuckled.
    “You needed a bride, and now you have one,” Myles said, as he hopped and tried to rub his shin. “Just get it done man.”
    “You mean, before she kills one of us?”
    “For the love of God,” Hunter said, “Myles, do not be an idiot. Ash has to clean her up first. The wench is a