The Savage Miss Saxon Read Free Page A

my part.”
    “Devilish acute, ain’t he?” Billy stage-whispered to his cousin, who hissed back at him to shut his trap and give his tongue a holiday.
    Nicholas was on the verge of forgiving the three boys, all now looking suitably repentant—even Cuffy—when Billy, who was still harboring the fear his drink induced miseries might yet prove fatal, felt his heart drop to his toes as he realized he was nearing the final stages of the death throes—he had begun to hallucinate!
    It had to be an hallucination. There could be no other explanation for the sight he now saw framed in the doorway. The apparition was, first of all, huge , being at least six and a half feet tall (though it could have been twelve and a half feet, Billy wasn’t sure), all of it made up of very solid-looking muscle for a figment of one’s imagination.
    There were beaded slippers of some sort on the creature’s feet, five-inch-long fringe hung from the outer side seams for the entire length of a pair of buckskin leggings, and a huge cape constructed of some dark brown animal fur was slung about a fine set of brawny bare shoulders. Atop the large head, a mop of long, coarse, black hair was banded about the forehead with a thin leather thong. But it was the apparition’s face that took and held Billy’s incredulous eyes. The face was painted coal black!
    “I’ll never touch another drop, Lord, I swear it,” Billy babbled, completely forgetting his stylish slang in his agitation. “Just, please Lord, make it go away! ”
    At Billy’s exclamation the other occupants turned toward the door.
    “Oh, I say!” exclaimed Cuffy, for once nonplussed.
    “I think I’m going to be sick,” Jeremy added forlornly.
    Only Lord Linton appeared unmoved by the presence of a demon in his library, as he took three paces forward and said, “Good morning, sir. Care for a cup of coffee?”
    The demon spread his feet more firmly apart, folded his massive arms across his equally massive chest, and replied, “ N’gattósomi .”
    By now Cuffy had recovered his composure. Grinning wickedly, he turned to Billy and asked, “Care to translate, coz? No? Well then, at least close your mouth—or as you’d prefer to say—dub yer mummer.”
    Jeremy began to dance around the room, one finger pointing at the man in the doorway. “I know what he is, Nick—he’s a wild Indian !” he exclaimed triumphantly.
    “So it would seem,” his brother returned. “Now all we have to do is ascertain whether that gibberish he was spouting means he’s thirsty or that he intends to remove all our scalps with that wicked-looking rib sticker hanging on his belt before going merrily off on his way.”
    “It means he’s thirsty,” a feminine voice announced from behind the Indian. “If it was your scalps he was after I’d currently be addressing a roomful of hairless corpses.” With that, the owner of the voice stepped out from behind her companion and strode confidently to the center of the room, thereby allowing everyone to get a good look at her.
    And look they did, drinking in the sight of a tall, slimly built young female of about nineteen or twenty, dressed in clothing that had been out of style in England for at least five years. But, as clothes never quite made the man, her clothes could not unmake her, for she was undeniably one of the most strikingly beautiful women this part of the country had ever seen.
    Hair that resembled shimmering blue-black silk hung in an unbroken fall down to her waist and a little beyond, with not a single tendril or wisp of curl cluttering up the purity of her strong high cheekbones, smooth rounded forehead, classically aristocratic straight nose, or finely carved chin. Framed by a thick fringe of long black curled lashes, her huge black eyes appeared to slant upward at the outer edges, like a cat’s, and although there was a slight pinkish bloom to her cheeks and her full wide mouth was enchantingly rose-kissed, her clear complexion was