It Happened One Holiday by Harmon Danelle

Author:Harmon, Danelle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oliver Heber Books
Published: 2020-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

“You can start by explaining who you are, why you are in my house, and why you came to the defense of my sister.”

The words were as flat as the surface of a brick and about as hard, too, but Noel looked at this man with the loosely curling hair that wasn’t quite blond and wasn’t quite brown, the wounded blue eyes rimmed in red and the gauntness of his cheeks. He smelled the fumes of brandy that still clung to him and noted the strange little twitch of his right eyelid and recognized something he’d seen in soldiers who’d tasted a little too liberally of battle and never managed to get that taste out of their mouths.

There was lasting damage here. Lots of it.

“Nollaig O’ Flaherty, late of Dunmore House in Dublin.” He bowed. “Your servant, sir.”

The man eyed him with a scrutiny Noel wouldn’t have thought possible, given the fact he was obviously half-soused. Or maybe he wasn’t. The fellow was a wreck, really, if not on the surface of things than deeply beneath it.

“And you are in my house, why?”

Lady Katharine, who had been staring at him in the sort of way the fairer sex so often did, not as if he were the Christ incarnate (that had been a First), but with a feminine interest that was far more comfortable than his sudden and temporary deification, found her voice.

“Mr. O’ Flaherty, may I present you to my brother, Peregrine Farnsley, the Earl of Brookhampton. Perry, this is Mr. Nollaig O’ Flaherty, who sought refuge with us on what has been a very difficult night for him. You don’t need to be looking at him as if he were about to rob us. He was injured and showed up on our doorstep asking for help. I provided it. It was the right thing to do.”

The earl’s bleak blue eyes swung into focus. “And how did you get injured?”

“I held up your neighbor’s coach. The one you just threw out of your house, in fact.”

The blue eyes focused some more. “You held up Lucien de Montforte’s coach?”

“Aye. I believe I did.”

Lord Brookhampton just stared at him, one brow raised. He made a little noise of amused disbelief, as it if were inconceivable that anyone, ever, would dare to hold up Lucien de Montforte’s coach.

“And how were you injured? You look quite healthy to me.”

“My horse reared up and fell over backwards on me. In fact, that’s her outside. Given the weather, I’d ask if I can settle her in your stables until I can be on my way in the morning.”

“So you’re a highwayman.”

“By necessity I can assure you, not by choice or trade.”

“That tends to be the excuse of them all, is it not?”

Noel was aware of Lady Katharine still quietly watching him. He could feel her blue eyes taking in his face, the curl of his hair, the span of his shoulders and probably the little scar on the underside of his jaw where he’d cut himself shaving before he left the inn in Ravenscombe hours before.

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