The Loves of Leopold Singer Read Online Free Page B

perfectly. He would treat her as kindly as he treated his dogs—which was very kind indeed. He would express his will, and it was hers to obey whether she wagged her tail or not. He lifted her skirt and thrust his hand between her legs. She gasped and her heart pounded. She wasn’t afraid; she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. But he smelled so awful.
    “I’ll get a boy on you soon enough, I expect.” And he began to go about it.
    It only took a few minutes. She started to get up, but he put his arm around her waist and anchored her to the bed. “We’ll go again as soon as I’m ready,” he said.
    She lay on her back, staring at the forest green canopy overhead. Carleson fondled her breasts and pinched her nipples beneath her dress. She’d never harbored a romantic notion about marriage, and thus far hers promised none. At least he didn’t seem the hitting sort of man.
    “You’ll have no troubles with the stores or the stock or the kitchen,” he said. “You’re Laurelwood’s mistress now, and I’ll see to anyone who don’t treat you right. Just give me a son to keep Laurelwood safe from Sir Carey.”
    Before she could ask who Sir Carey was, Carleson had her again.

Ladies Love a Title
     
    The canal works murders were the talk of The Branch harvest ball. Sir Carey grieved for the marquess. Of course he grieved. It must be dispiriting to lose one’s father, especially considering Millie had actually known the man. Carey never knew his father. Or mother, for that matter. His parents died of typhus before he was a month old.
    In Ireland, gawdsake.
    Eighteen years ago when Baron Branch was still alive, his daughter Lady Philomela went to Ireland to nurse her ailing younger sister, Lady Daphne, who’d married the seventh son of an Irish gentleman, a painter with no money and no prospects. The typhus wiped out the entire household but for Philomela and Carey. He was but a few months old, son of an Irish gentleman and lady unlucky enough to be visiting just as the typhus hit.  
    The old baron objected to bringing an “unfortunate Irish brat” into his household, but Lady Philomela wouldn’t let him go. “God made me this child’s protector,” she said, “and with that you will not interfere.” From what little Carey had learned over the years about the baron, Philly had hated him as well as she hated most men.
    When the baron died with no male heir, Philly was made baroness in her own right. She made Carey her ward and raised him to be a proper English gentleman. And now she had got him a title. Newly created, and he wasn’t a lord, but Sir Carey Asher, Baronet would have to do. Sorely lacking in land and fortune, but a respectable, hereditary title.
    And there was the rub. He’d expected to be the center of attention at this ball, fielding congratulations and juggling dance partners. Instead, he was forced to listen to the insufferable Sir Herbert Whitley tell tales of the canal murders. Even now, Whitley entertained a group of ladies with the details, ladies who should be flirting with Carey.
    “He was caught by the navvies,” Sir Herbert said. “They would have murdered the devil themselves if the marquess hadn’t stopped them.”
    “Was he French, Sir Herbert?” said Lady Delia. “A Jacobin?”
    “An agent of Napoleon, perhaps,” Carey offered, knowing his sarcasm would be lost on all.
    Lady Delia smiled behind her fan. She had a brain. She understood. Gohrumshire was landlocked. She knew the suggestion was ludicrous. But Whitley’s other female audience hyperventilated at the thought of revolutionaries infiltrating to the heart of England.
    “Nothing so romantic,” Whitley said. “The man was a common miscreant.”
    “Sir Herbert sent his agent to evict a few tenants to make way for a canal.” Whitley’s young wife looked sideways at Carey. “My husband had not yet procured an Act, but—”
    “Yes, yes, Lady Whitley,” Sir Herbert said. “I wasn’t going to actually evict anyone,