My Lady Vixen Read Free Page A

morning, Alexa, and this was our last chance to … er … talk privately before I sailed. I am your fiance, after all. What business has this Colonial to butt in where he’s not wanted. I have a good notion to teach him a lesson.”
    Heedless of his drunken state, or perhaps due to it. Charles launched himself full tilt at the unsuspecting Adam, only to be neatly sidestepped by the quick-thinking new lord. Not to be thwarted. Charles roused himself for another attack, but this time he met the solid front of a doubled fist as Adam’s natural reflexes required that he defend himself. Charles hit the floor like a sack of potatoes as Adam rubbed his knuckles thoughtfully.
    Alexa was stunned. From the moment she walked out the French doors with Charles things had happened soswiftly that she could do little more than stand and gape at the inert form of her fiance.
    “You’ve killed him!” she gasped, finally finding her voice.
    “No such luck,” sneered Adam scathingly. “Your young popinjay will recover to take to the sea tomorrow.”
    “You didn’t have to hit him so hard,” she accused.
    “I could have just gone away and let him assault you,” Adam challenged cynically.
    “I’d better go back to the house and get some help,” Alexa said, ignoring Adam’s gibe.
    “Looking like that?” Adam asked, cocking one well-shaped brow suggestively. “That ought to cause quite a stir.”
    Glancing down at her tattered and rumpled gown, Alexa realized that Adam spoke the truth. Somehow she’d have to sneak up to her room and send word down to her father that she’d developed a sudden headache.
    “I can sneak up to my room through the back entrance, but what about Charles?” Alexa asked. “We just can’t leave him lying there.”
    Had Alexa looked into Adam’s eyes at that exact moment she would have run for her life. An unnatural light glowed from those silver orbs and he smiled as if destiny was about to be fulfilled. “I’ll have my friend see him safely to his ship. By tomorrow he’ll be so busy looking for the Fox that he’ll forget everything that happened tonight. I’ve a good notion he’s too drunk to remember anyway.”
    “I … I don’t know,” hedged Alexa, sitting on the horns of dilemma. “Shouldn’t we tell someone?”
    “Do you want it bandied about by the scandalmongers that your fiance got drunk and assaulted you? That he was knocked cold by an earl of little account? It’s entirely up to you, milady.”
    “No … no,” protested Alexa, picturing in her mind the embarrassment she would endure by returning to the ballroom practically naked. “Your way is much more discreet. I’ll … I’ll make it up to Charles when he returns. He would have never acted so rashly had he not been in his cups.”
    “You show good sense, milady,” mocked Adam. “Wait here while I summon my friend. Then I’ll see you to the back entrance.” He slipped out the door so silently Alexa had to look twice to make sure he was gone.
    Sighly heavily, Alexa sat down, trying to puzzle out just where the evening went awry. One moment she was laughing and dancing with her dashing fiance and the next she was fighting off a drunken rapist she barely knew. And how did it happen that Lord Penwell should show up at so crucial a moment? It wasn’t as if the summerhouse was in a likely place for a stranger to be casually strolling by. That’s why Charles chose it. Something here didn’t quite mesh but for the life of her Alexa couldn’t figure it out.
    In a surprisingly short time Adam returned with the redheaded man she had seen him conversing with in the ballroom. “Lady Alexa, may I present my friend, Logan MacHugh? Everyone calls him Mac. He graciously agreed to take your … uh … fiance safely back to his ship.”
    Alexa thought Mac looked slightly dubious but put it down to the unusual circumstances. Embarrassed by her dishevelled appearance, Alexa said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mac, and I’m