Suzanne Robinson Read Free Page A

the handle with your wrist twisted down while your finger goes for the trigger and your thumb reaches for the hammer. An awkward maneuver, but if you do it careful, a deadly one. You got to learn to hit what you aim at the first time, ’cause the smoke obscures your view of the next shot.” He holstered the pistol without taking his gaze from her. “At this distance, I wouldn’t need no second shot.”
    She had been motionless with fear. As he lectured her in that lazy, uncouth accent, she recovered her sense, and then lost it in her rage.
    “You nearly killed me!” Too late she remembered her own accent. Luckily she hadn’t said much. Rubbing her grubby hands together, she wailed. “You give me a turn, my lord. I’m all twittered, Lord bless me.”
    At her whimper the viscount seemed to wake from some unknown reverie. He blinked rapidly. His hand dropped away from his holster. As she peeped at him from behind her hands, a change came over him.His indolent slouch disappeared while his spine straightened. Wide shoulders stretched the seams of his shirt when he squared them. His chin lifted so that he looked down from an even greater height than before, and one hand balled into a loose fist, which he put behind his back. Uncannily, she almost heard in his voice a drum roll and pipes, and the sound of the parade of the Horse Guard.
    “I’ll not have a plump and peevish maid of all work take me to task.” The aristocrat’s sneer was back.
    She clamped her fingers over her mouth, aghast that her zeal to cover her identity had brought her close to dismissal. Then she shrank back as he suddenly began to stalk toward her.
    “I told you not to move.” He stopped not two feet from her and scowled. “You’re filthy, and shivering. Did they send you up here without allowing you to warm yourself? No doubt you’ve been standing outside in that damnable fog for an hour. Go away.”
    “Th-the fire, my lord.”
    “I’ll attend to it.” The clipped, university-bred accent was well in place now. “If I can start a fire in a Panhandle snowstorm, I can light coals. Off with you, miss.”
    “But, my lord—”
    “Hang it all!”
    The sound of a cleared throat interrupted the viscount’s American curse. “Ah-hum. My lord.”
    Jocelin tapped his fingers against his holster and nodded for Loveday to enter. The valet glided over to him noiselessly.
    “It seems, my lord, that our second pair of riding boots has been ruined by the new knife boy.”
    “Already?”
    “Yes, my lord. We will have to wear our new ones. The knife boy has put black polish on them instead of brown. I fear our reputation has preceded us and caused a slight brain fever in the lad.”
    Liza’s consternation renewed when, instead of launching into a peevish fit, the viscount shrugged and turned away. His hands went to his belt. Leather creaked as he loosened it, and it fell away from his hips, slithering over a taut buttock that caught and held Liza’s gaze. An unexpected heat burst within her when he lowered himself into the chair by the tea table and the buckskin pants tightened over his thighs. Her glance seemed unmovable, fixed on the knot of muscle just above his knee.
    “Get her out of here,” he said wearily. Without glancing at her, he lay his holster and revolver next to the silver teapot and lifted the china cup.
    She felt an elbow prod her arm. Loveday poked her again. Backing up, Liza turned and fled. Racing through the servant’s door, she sprinted downstairs as if chased by rabid dogs. Once in the scullery, she found water and gave herself a wash. She noticed for the first time that her hands were shaking. Never had she seen anyone like Jocelin, Viscount Radcliffe—part gunman, part nobleman. What was worse, as barbaric as his American side appeared, she was beginning to realize that his aristocratic side might be as dangerous, and was certainly more sinister.

J ocelin leaned back in the Louis XVI chair, his legs crossed at the