Stranded With The Scottish Earl Read Free

at least he did now.
    After draping his wet, crumpled towel over another chair, Lyle straightened and stared at his adorably disheveled companion. “Shouldn’t we
    introduce ourselves?”
    She lowered the towel from her hair and regarded him with unreadable eyes. To his complete amazement, she dropped into a curtsy. “My name is Flora,
    sir. I’m a housemaid here.”
    With difficulty, he stifled a scoffing laugh. His intelligence mustn’t have impressed her. That lie wouldn’t convince the county’s
    greatest blockhead. Not least because she spoke with a clipped upper-class accent and her hands, while undoubtedly competent, were as smooth and
    unblemished as any lady’s.
    “Flora…” he said in a thoughtful voice, studying the wee besom and trying to make sense of this latest twist in their interactions.
    “Yes, sir,” she said, dropping her gaze with unconvincing humility.
    What the devil was she playing at, Sir John Warren’s beautiful only child? She’d kept him guessing from the first, which promised interesting
    times to come. Last week in his London club, her father had offered this girl to Lyle as his bride.
    Intrigued and faintly annoyed that she judged him daft enough to swallow this twaddle, Lyle decided to allow her enough rope to hang herself. Plastering an
    ingenuous smile on his face, he stepped closer. “I’m delighted to meet you, Miss Flora. My name is Smith. Ebenezer Smith.”

Chapter Two
----
     
    Charlotte Warren stared incredulous at the tall, commanding man who filled the Grange’s kitchens with sheer force of personality. Then she shut her
    mouth so sharply, her teeth clicked.
    “Mr. Smith?” she said, much as he’d said “Flora.” Flora was the first name she thought of when she decided not to reveal who
    she was.
    “Aye, that’s right,” he said with that sincere smile she didn’t trust at all.
    “But you’re Scottish.” She slipped out of her clogs, then was sorry she did because barefoot, she lost a good two inches in height.
    “Smith is a gey common name north of the border.”
    Whereas there was only one Ewan Macrae, Earl of Lyle, she thought grimly. She glanced toward the fine leather baggage piled beside the table.
    “That’s odd. The initials on your saddlebags are E.A.A.M.”
    To her satisfaction, chagrin flashed in those deep-set, dark blue eyes
.
    Take that, Ewan Macrae, whatever that double A stands for. “Arrogant Ass,” I’m guessing.
    After she’d read her father’s insultingly brief note announcing that he’d chosen the perfect husband for her, she’d balled it up
    and flung it into the fire. Then she’d set out to ignore the absurdity, hoping that like most of her father’s crazes, it would go away.
    It hadn’t gone away.
    The proof that it hadn’t stood before her now, over six feet tall, black-haired, brawny, and with an insolent light in his cobalt eyes that made her
    want to pitch a copper saucepan at his gorgeous head.
    “That’s the monogram of the fine gentleman I serve, Ewan Macrae, Earl of Lyle.” He paused and subjected her to a sharp glance where she
    stood near the hearth. “Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”
    “I have no interest in society wastrels,” she said in a lofty tone, before recalling her humble alias. A housemaid shouldn’t criticize
    her betters. At least to the betters she criticized.
    “Is that so?” he asked with a suspiciously straight face. “If you don’t mind my saying, Miss Flora, you’re a haughty wee
    lassie for one so low in the domestic pecking order.”
    Although she thought herself too frozen and wet to blush, blush she did. But then she wasn’t used to telling lies, whereas this man lied as readily
    as Bill had flopped down before the roaring fire.
    “I beg your pardon, Mr. Smith. It was the pressure of the moment,” she said in the same intransigent tone. “With everyone away, I’m
    in charge of the house.”
    He had the most extraordinary eyes. Even when his expression was serious, a