The Spinster and the Earl Read Online Free Page A

alive.
    “No, the devil take it. I am not!” he spat out wincing. “ Demme , my leg is throbbing dreadfully. And you, madam, are clearly some sort of half-witted, featherbrained female to think otherwise. Indeed, if I felt any worse, I’d no doubt be lying completely unconscious at your feet!”
    “I better help you up, then,” she said, biting nervously down on her lower lip, while secretly dreading getting any closer to him. She knew from past experiences that the English were not a good-natured people. And this one apparently was not about to become an exception to the rule. And what would ordinarily have been a perfectly tranquil day of hunting was now ruined.
    She sighed to herself as she drew closer. She knew immediately that her first assumptions about him were correct. He was indeed English. There was no question about his nationality. And just to make matters more disagreeable, undoubtedly some sort of well-titled English gentleman. A fact that clearly evinced itself by the well-clipped, cultured accent she’d heard when he spoke, and by his top-lofty manner towards her, his supposed inferior, an Irish gentlewoman.
    His impeccable attire, although now thoroughly mud-stained, clung damply to his masculine form like a second skin. The tailoring of the riding outfit was evidently the workmanship of an expensive London tailor, such as Schweitzer and Davidson, or perhaps even that newcomer, Guthrie, she’d been reading about. Indeed, no good Irish tailor worth his name would have considered using such superfine material for a common riding jacket. A good Irish country tailor wisely knew that during a fast-paced canter across the damp, green hills, the suit would become irreparably soiled. “Why waste good material?” a tailor would argue with his clients. When good, sturdy wool and leather are plentiful on the isles, why not simply put them to good use?
    Aye, she nodded. And this stranger’s clothes were better suited for the more sedate gentlemanly pleasures of a calm dry trot in a fashionable London park. Slim chance of a healthy mud-splattering there.
    But it was not his stylish clothes, nor the fact that he was probably a powerfully titled Lord Somebody or Other, which troubled her. It was the manner in which his right leg sat at an unhealthy angle. It denoted a serious injury. He could, she knew, become permanently crippled from such a tumble if his leg were not properly tended.
    “Do you intend to assist me, or are you planning on standing there awaiting this muck to bury me?” he asked with dry humor. “For if you must know, ’tis dreadfully wet and cold.” He indicated the bog, which surrounded him, raising one muddied hand for her inspection. “And as for its fragrant bouquet . . . well, I do believe only a swine would denote it as pleasant to the finer senses.”
    He had not been gilding the truth, she decided moments later, her own pert nose wrinkling at the putrid smell of various decaying elements, which created the bog. Because he was by all accounts badly wounded, she waded in, not wishing to risk his catching some deadly wasting sickness brought on by a sudden inflammation of the lungs. She had enough laid at her doorstep as it was. She needed no further trouble, such an English nobleman becoming seriously ill, to add to it.
    Carefully balancing herself with her shillelagh , a long, polished, walking stick made from the branch of an ancient oak tree, she checked the depths. It was not unknown for bogs to turn into unexpected deathtraps. Bogs often acted as sinkholes and many an unwary traveler was known to have been suddenly sucked down by them. Fortunately, the stranger had landed in a rather shallow one. There appeared to be no imminent danger of any unexpected sinking.
    The long walking stick she used was one of her father’s making and she always took extra care to carry it with her when hunting. Never once had she imagined there’d come a day when she’d use it to wade into a bog to