TheWifeTrap Read Free

your own?”
    “I am presently
on my way to my cousins’ estate north of Waterford near some village called
Inis…Inis…” She broke off, racking her mind and drawing a complete blank. “Oh,
fiddlesticks, I can’t remember now. It’s Inis-something-or-other.”
    “Inistioge, do
you mean?” he suggested.
    “Yes, I believe
that is it. Do you know the place?”
    “Aye, I know it
well.”
    Assuming he was
not a rogue—though she still had her doubts on that subject—she supposed he
might be a decent sort. A local farmer or some such, a freeholder mayhap or
possibly a merchant. Although she couldn’t imagine Darragh O’Brien serving
anyone, not with that brash, ungoverned attitude of his.
    If he knew the
village near her cousins’ home, though, perhaps she hadn’t too much farther to
travel. Heaven knows, she longed to arrive at her destination so she could
climb down from this coach and shake out her skirts.
    “I am to stay
with my cousins there,” she said. “And though, again, it isn’t actually any of
your concern, my title is one of birth, not marriage. I am presently unwed.”
    The gleam in his
expressive eyes deepened. “Are you not, lass? I always knew Englishmen were
fools but I didn’t know they were blind into the bargain.”
    A renewed ripple
of awareness quivered in her middle. She buried it with a stern inner rebuke,
reminding herself that no matter how attractive he might be, O’Brien was not
the kind of man with whom a lady of her rank would consort.
    “I believe I told
you not to address me by the term
lass,
” she said, her tone too
breathless to sound much like a scold.
    “Aye, and so you
did.” He grinned at her, visibly unrepentant. “Lass.”
    Then he did the
most astonishing thing—he winked at her. An audacious, irreverent wink that
sent a flood of warmth rushing through her veins like the unleashing of a
rain-swollen dam after a heavy storm.
    If she’d been
given to blushing, the way her identical twin sister was, she’d be stained
scarlet as a poppy now. But thankfully, blushing at every passing remark was
one of the rare physical traits she and her sister, Violet, did not share.
    The summer heat,
she concluded,
that
was the cause for her untoward reaction. The
steamy, unseasonable weather must be affecting her already overburdened senses.
If she were back in London, she wouldn’t have given him so much as a second
look. Well, maybe a second, but not a third.
    “Come along with
you, then,” O’Brien declared in a no-nonsense tone. “We’ve talked long enough
and I need to get you out of this coach.”
    “Oh, I’m not
getting out. Perhaps my coachman didn’t mention it, but I have already had this
discussion with him. We agreed that I would remain precisely where I am until
the barouche can be set on its way.”
    O’Brien shook his
head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to step out, unless you’ve a wish to start living
inside this vehicle. In case you didn’t know, the coach is muck-mired up to its
wheels and your men can’t push it properly with you inside.”
    “If it’s my
safety you are concerned about, do not be. I shall be fine.”
    A bit queasy
mayhap, but fine.
    “It’s more than
your safety, though that is a concern. There’s the matter of your weight.”
    “What about my
weight!” Her eyebrows jerked high.
    With a bold,
assessing gaze, he scanned the length of her body, from the brim of her hat to
the tips of her half boots. “I’m not implying you’re fat or anything, if that’s
what you’re thinking. You’ve a fine womanly figure, but even a few stone can
make the difference between lifting this coach out of its hole or sinking it
deeper.”
    She sat,
momentarily speechless, his rudeness beyond measure. Imagine discussing her
weight and her figure in nearly the same breath! Why, a gentleman would never
dare. But then, this man was no gentleman. He was a barbarian. From his tone he
might have been discussing farm animals that needed to be