Move Heaven and Earth Read Free Page B

dodged while counting, then pronounced, “That’s all on that candelabra, miss. Ye’re safe for the moment.”
    So Sylvan sailed in.
    She ignored the books on the floor and the shelves that showed broken-tooth gaps. She ignored the overturned furniture and the remnants of every ornament that had formerly decorated the shattered room. She ignored the red-faced duke of Clairmont, who held a cane clutched in his fist and muttered apologies. She looked only at the occupant of the chair with wheels.
    Rand’s eyes gleamed with demonic intensity as he examined her. His black hair stood in clumps over his skull, as if he’d been tearing at it. The wheeled cane chair must have been built especially to fit his wiry frame and long legs.
    She knew they were long, because he wore a black silk robe. A robe hemmed so it wouldn’t drag on the floor as he wheeled himself around. A robe that tied at the middle and revealed, only too clearly, that he wore trousers and nothing else.
    He flaunted himself. One side of the robe had slipped over his shoulder, showing the development of a man forced to use his arms constantly. His chest was similarly muscular, and when she jerked her gaze back to his face, she found him maliciously laughing at her.
    Did he think she’d never seen a half-naked man before?
    “By Jove, Rand, cover up.” Garth rushed forward and tried to adjust Rand’s robe over his chest.
    Rand shoved him away, still challenging Sylvan with his gaze. Only his hands betrayed his true agitation, for they gripped the two large hardwood chair wheels with white-knuckled dedication.
    She had no attention to spare for Garth. She had no attention to spare for anyone but the man who rejected himself by rejecting her. Handing him the pricklystemmed rose with a flourish, she said, “For a cripple, you’re not a bad-looking fellow.”
    He accepted it, then flung it away. “For a nurse, you look almost normal.”
    She grinned.
    He grinned back.
    She wondered which of them bared their teeth with more challenge. “What obnoxious behavior,” she marveled. “Have you been practicing it long?”
    His smile dipped a little. “No doubt I shall perfect it in the short interval of your visit .”
    “This is not a visit,” she said crisply. “If I wished to visit , I would stay with someone of breeding and good manners. Instead, I am an employee, and as such must earn my wages.”
    His nostrils flared, his mouth compressed. “I dismiss you.”
    “You cannot. You did not hire me.”
    In one violent motion, he picked up a book and sent it flying out of an upper window. It crashed. She flinched, and he chortled. The sound irritated her and confirmed her tentative evaluation. Adela was right. This man needed something. Something different. Something besides tender care and gentle handling, and if he didn’t behave, she was the woman to give it to him.
    In blatant challenge, Rand threw another book out an upper window, and this time part of the pane exploded into the room. Garth cursed and jumped backward. Rand shook it off like a dog shaking off water. Shards rained into Sylvan’s hair, and when she brushed it with her fingers, one came away bloody.
    “Oh, Miss Sylvan.” Garth stepped forward, his boots crunching the glass into bits, his expression a mixture ofmortification and disappointment. “Let me have Betty look at that.”
    “No!” By Rand’s smirking face, she knew Garth was giving up already. “I just didn’t realize what Lord Rand desired. Now I do, and I will never forget.” She had the satisfaction of seeing Rand’s smile slip. “Lord Rand, if you wanted fresh air, you had only to ask. Breaking out the windows seems excessive, but it makes my duties easier when you express yourself so eloquently.” Determined, she walked toward him.
    Warily, he backed up.
    She effortlessly circled him and grasped the handles of the chair.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” he said with a snarl.
    “Taking you out for