Rules of Engagement by Christina Dodd

Author:Christina Dodd
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

As the carriage pulled to stop before his townhouse and Timothy jumped down from the back and ran toward the building, Kerrich flung wide the door and shouted, "Don't bother getting us another umbrella. I've seen it all now."

"My lord?" Drenched, confused, distressed, Timothy stopped before the open front door and gaped.

Leaping right into a puddle, Kerrich placed the step himself, reached inside, grabbed Pamela's wrist and dragged her out into the gusting rain. The drops splashed against her face, and she wanted to hug herself against the cold, but he hauled her along as if he were a stevedore and she some kind of cargo.

Such handling did not endear him to her. Fiercely, she tugged backward. "What about Beth?"

Beth's voice chimed, "I'm here."

"She's right behind us." Kerrich whipped his head around and glared at Pamela. "She can have the umbrella. It's not as if she did anything wrong."

Snatching an umbrella from inside, Timothy hurried to lift the cover over Beth as she climbed the stairs.

Kerrich kept his hand around Pamela's wrist as he pushed inside without ceremony. "I suppose you knew about this, too, Moulton."

"My lord? Knew about…" Moulton caught a glimpse of Pamela and his chin dropped. The most articulate sound he seemed capable of was a long, exhaled, "Ohh."

Candles flickered everywhere in the foyer: tall tapers, fat columns, all wax and all burning brightly, and when Kerrich looked back at Pamela he stopped short. She barely avoided sliding into him, and as incensed as he was, she suspected that kind of contact might be hazardous. She thought that if he had to wrap his arm around her to steady her, he might hold her too tight and all the precarious hostility between them would shatter into… well, she didn't know what it would shatter into, but something quite unpleasant. Like his kisses.

He stared at her, examining her bare face. "You can look like this…" His voice trailed off as if fury had made him incoherent.

"I doubt, my lord, that I sport any beauty now."

He loomed over her, a dark, scowling presence. "Compared to what you were before…"

She should have been worried. Instead she was antagonistic. Without hesitation, she told him so. "This whole affair is your fault, not mine."

Moulton's breath hissed between his teeth.

Kerrich did not stir. "You dare."

She drew herself up and gave him her severest Miss Lockhart scowl— only to find it no longer worked.

Impervious, he commanded, "Beth, go upstairs and find your nursemaid, what's-her-name."

"Corliss," Pamela said.

"Yes, sir." Beth curtsied.

Pamela glanced back in time to see the child skipping up the stairs, apparently not a bit perturbed at having her governess hauled off by a hostile lord. "Change out of your wet clothing at once or you will catch pneumonia," she called.

Beth waved and smiled.

Pamela was starting to find Beth's invincible good cheer suspect.

Kerrich towed Pamela toward his study, and she doubted any force in nature could have stopped him.

His grandfather stopped him.

Lord Reynard came out of the study, leaning on his cane, and in one glance took in the situation.

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