Woo'd in Haste Read Online Free Page B

Oxford. Over the years, they’d all been thrown together at the occasional “children’s” balls. He was athletic and handsome, but a boy at seventeen was not focused on love and marriage the way a girl was. Other than practicing flirtation, there was little point in forming any sort of tender for someone like John. At the same time, the community had been decimated by the Napoleonic wars and local assemblies were low on eligible men ready to settle down.
    “I think he’s—”
    “Yes, I know he’s young,” Alice said. “But it isn’t as if I’m going to marry him. At least, not yet, and not likely. But he’s grown at least three inches since last summer. And his muscles bulge . He must be quite the athlete. I bet he kisses divinely.”
    Bianca laughed.
    Alice batted her lashes. “Take the bet, would you? Then I have a reason, no, a mission, to discover how he kisses.”
    “I’m not making that bet.”
    “Pfft,” Alice dismissed her. “You’re no fun at all.”
    For a moment they worked on reworking last year’s hats in companionable silence.
    “What about Thomas’s new tutor? Is he handsome?”
    “He’s a tutor.”
    “He’s a man. And young, I hear. Come, fill me in.”
    That was Alice’s minimum criteria. She was interested in any young man, be he butcher or prince. She often compared it to being a connoisseur of art, only she appreciated the male species.
    “He is tall,” Bianca said grudgingly, imagining Mr. Dore as she had seen him just that morning at breakfast. She had been inordinately aware of how tall and broad he was. Sitting next to him, he seemed to take up so much space. “And his shoulders . . .”
    “Broad? Muscular?” Alice sighed with pleasure. “What color is his hair, his eyes? Does he have a cleft in his chin?”
    “Brown. I don’t know. And no.”
    She hadn’t really had much of a chance to look at him despite their proximity. But she had been aware of him. How could one not be aware of such a giant? Or of a newcomer to one’s home?
    “And? What is he like?”
    Bianca sighed and pushed the thought of him to the side, just like she did everything else that had to do with Watersham. Her life wouldn’t really begin until she hit London. Until Kate married.
    “He’s a tutor. What does it matter?”
    A fter breakfast, Luc was shown to his room, a small chamber just a few steps away from the schoolroom. It was neither the meanest nor plainest of places in which he had ever stayed. There had been that boardinghouse on the border of the relatively new principality of Serbia, an excursion not on the original agenda but half the charm of a Grand Tour was throwing detailed plans away and simply following one’s wont. Regardless, he would be comfortable enough in this narrow room with its narrow bed.
    He put away his belongings and then went to the schoolroom where Miss Smith and Thomas were in the midst of a lesson on geography. Silence met his entrance as they both stared at him. Miss Smith’s gaze was no less assessing than it had been in the morning room. She would not be easy to impress. He focused his attention on the boy.
    “Well, then,” he said, clapping his hands, remembering the gesture from teachers during his own schoolboy days. “I thought today I would observe.” He had formulated the plan overnight, designed to give him time to acclimate to his new position.
    Miss Smith smiled thinly. “An admirable idea.”
    Despite her words, he had the distinct impression she didn’t care for him. The dislike could hardly be due to professional jealousy as he had overheard her the very day before asking Mr. Mansfield to hire a male tutor. Which Luc was. Or was pretending to be. Not the male part.
    Maybe she suspected.
    “I find observation is the key to all manner of study.” Now he sounded pompous, and the little boy was looking distinctly disappointed. As if he didn’t care for his new tutor, either. This was not the best way to begin his employment, or to