Ever a Princess by Rebecca Hagan Lee

Author:Rebecca Hagan Lee [Lee, Rebecca Hagan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 0515132500
Google: irf48d37oXMC
Amazon: B00AFY9976
Goodreads: 758068
Publisher: Jove
Published: 2002-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The Bountiful Baron defends the rights of women and will always rush to the side of a woman in need. It is not in his character to do otherwise.

—THE SECOND INSTALLMENT OF THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE BOUNTIFUL BARON: WESTERN

BENEFACTOR TO BLOND, BEAUTIFUL, AND BETRAYED WOMEN WRITTEN BY JOHN J. BOOKMAN, 1874.

O’Brian related the incident to Adam an hour or so later when they met in the library for their customary after-dinner whisky and cigars.

"George brought your dinner to your room?" Adam asked.

O'Brien nodded. "Yes. On a butler's table that she handed over to me without rattling a dish."

"You were witness to a miracle," Adam commented dryly.

O'Brien laughed. "It's a fairly commonplace miracle." He shot a pointed look at his friend. "But I don't affect her the way you do."

"I make her nervous."

"Of course you do," O'Brien said. "Because you look at her as if she's the rabbit and you're the fox."

Adam lifted an eyebrow at that.

"And she looks at you as if you're a rabbit and she's the fox."

"You've been paying attention."

"I'm a Pinkerton agent," O'Brien reminded him. "I'm supposed to pay attention."

"Yet you have no idea what the family meeting was about?" Adam poured a glass of whisky for each of them.

"I imagine it was about you," Murphy said. "But I can't prove it. Despite my attempt to appeal to her sense of fair play."

Adam smirked. "You're losing your touch, boyo." He handed O'Brien a glass of whisky.

"Not quite," O'Brien retorted. "She felt sorry for me and she felt guilty about excluding me from the family gathering, but not enough to induce her to tell me what the meeting was about."

"You tried."

"Yeah, well, I tried to entice her into having dinner with me, too."

"What?"

It was Murphy's turn to smirk. "That got your attention."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you, boyo, trying to ignore your attraction to the Valkyrie, when anyone with half an eye can see it's impossible. When's the last time you took any notice of the women I invite to dinner?"

Adam glared at his best friend. There would be hell to pay if O'Brien found out just how attracted to the Valkyrie he was. And if Murph got wind of the kisses he and George had exchanged behind the library's locked doors, he would never let him hear the end of it. "You needn't worry about it," Adam said. "I'm sure that any attraction I might be tempted to feel for the Valkyrie will die a quick death once we return to London."

"London?" Murphy choked on the mouthful of Scotch he'd just swallowed, coughing until his eyes watered.

"That got your attention." Adam reached over and pounded O'Brien on the back.

"Did you say we were going to London?" O'Brien asked in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like his normal baritone.

"That's what I said."

"Why?"

Adam pulled a white linen envelope from the pile of mail stacked on the corner of his desk and waved it in the air. "I received a letter from Kirstin today."

O'Brien frowned. "Is His Bastard Lordship up to his old tricks?"

"She doesn't say.

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