The Scandal Before Christmas Read Free Page B

all what I had envisioned for a bachelor’s establishment. But I wonder if your mother, the Viscountess Rainesford, might have taken a hand in assisting you with the decoration of the house? I had no idea you might be used to having everything so fine.”
    With that remark, Mrs. Lesley turned an assessing eye on her daughter, as if she feared the girl were not fine enough for her potential surroundings. And though the daughter did not raise her eyes, she had clearly understood her mother’s uneasy perusal, for a sweep of high color blazed up her pale cheeks. Yet still, she did not speak.
    But with the mother still carrying on—“This chimney appears to draw well. So important to have a fire that draws cleanly, don’t you think? I always say…”—no one could get a word in edgewise. It was no wonder the girl was a silent as the tomb.
    God’s balls. Maybe she was a mute, who never spoke. Or couldn’t. Maybe—
    “I’ll take tea, of course, and the colonel will take coffee.” Mrs. Lesley set herself directly next to the tray, but motioned meaningfully for the brown wren to do the actual work of pouring the cups of coffee and tea.
    The girl did so, silently fulfilling her mother’s wishes, until she needed to address Ian’s choice. He waited hopefully for her to speak, but she merely glanced up at him, and with the barest lift of her brown eyebrows, asked for his preference by holding up an empty cup in question.
    Yet Ian was intrigued by the spark or flash of something—something less docile than her outward behavior suggested—he fancied he saw in the depths of her otherwise ordinary brown eyes.
    “Coffee,” he answered firmly over Mrs. Lesley’s observations on the salubrious effect of the local climate.
    “… the sea air is bound to do a body good. Oh, how I envy you the sea air, Lieutenant Worth.”
    She wouldn’t envy him when a freezing gale came howling down the Channel out of the North Sea and rattled the windows with lashings of sleet, but Ian let the comment pass. And kept his gaze on the quiet girl while she poured, giving him only a fleeting glimpse of her darkly intelligent eyes when she raised them in silent inquiry over the cream and sugar.
    He shook his head in answer, and tried to give her an encouraging smile.
    She didn’t smile back.
    Well, damn his eyes. Perhaps she really was a mute. Perhaps that was why the colonel was so willing to be rid of her. On the other hand, perhaps a wife who was unable to nag would prove a boon to domestic harmony. He had to hope.
    Had he imagined that flash of something more? Had he invented a glimpse of keen intelligence to ease his disappointment? Her head was back down now, hidden behind her straw bonnet, merely a muddy brown marsh wren.
    He had to find out. He turned to the colonel. “Is there something wrong with her? Is there a reason she isn’t able to speak?”
    “No.” The girl’s gaze came swiftly to his, sharp and incisive. As was her voice, though it was so small, it was beyond quiet. “There is nothing wrong with me .”
    But for the first time, she looked at him fully, her gaze level and direct, and Ian could see without any doubt that the expression he thought he had seen dancing in the dark depths of Anne Lesley’s golden brown eyes was in actuality, a subtle, refined rage.

Chapter Four
    It was everything Anne Lesley could do to sit still, and not throw the entire pot of coffee at Lieutenant Worth’s big, thick, absolutely perfect head.
    Not that she had ever thrown a coffeepot in her life, but the moment seemed ripe to start. And it made a nice change from wanting to throw pots and pans and anything else to hand at her mother, who chattered and nattered on and on, just as she always did, until Anne thought she would drown in the rising sea of endless, useless, suffocating noise.
    And from the slightly seasick look on the impossibly handsome lieutenant’s face, he now felt the same way. About her.
    “If you will excuse me,