Captive by Joan Johnston Read Free Book Online

around day in and day out. It was exhausting just to think about it. His elderly grandparents should not be saddled with what, after all, was his responsibility.
    He had a lot of work to do if he was going to turn his ward into someone who could be presented to the queen and become a diamond of the first water at Almack’s. He would have to bring in a modiste from London to make gowns for her—and burn all her trousers. He would have to teach her not to look at a man so directly or answer him so defiantly. Could she dance? He had better see to that, as well.
    Charlotte had a great deal to learn in order to become a proper English lady. And he was just the man to teach her.
    A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
    “Lion? May I come in?”
    He made sure he was as decent as possible. “Come in, Olivia.”
    She peered around the edge of his bedroom door before she entered the room, like a mouse checking for the cat before leaving its hole, then limped awkwardly across the room. Her broken leg had not healed properly, and one leg was slightly longer than the other. It had sadly curtailed her come-out, but in the years since her accident, she had never expressed any desire to rejoin Society.
    “From my bedroom window I could see the doctor coming down the drive in his carriage,” she said. “I thought I’d let you know he’ll be here soon. Are you in much pain?”
    “Not much.” His leg was on fire, but there was no sense worrying her about it.
    “Can you tell me what happened?”
    “It was an accident.”
    “Did Charlotte have anything to do with it?”
    “She happened to be holding the pitchfork at the time I ran into it,” he said with a wry twist of his lips.
    “Oh, dear.” Olivia stood at the foot of his bed wringing her hands. “I’m sure she didn’t mean todo it, Lion. It’s only that she’s such a lively girl. And so often she doesn’t think before she acts.”
    “What I would like to know is how she got out of her room in the first place.”
    She lowered her gaze and said, “I unlocked the door.”
    “Why?”
    It annoyed him that she would not look at him. Which made no sense, when he had found equal fault with Charlotte’s more direct gaze. He realized he had no way of telling what Olivia was thinking when she hid her eyes from him that way. “I can understand the girl’s defiance, Olivia. What I do not understand is why you would disobey me.”
    Her fingers toyed with the folds of her plain merino day dress. “You were wrong to confine her, Lion. I let her out because you had no right to lock Charlotte in her room in the first place.”
    “I’m her guardian, Olivia. I have every right.”
    “Because you
have
the right does not mean it
is
right,” Olivia persisted.
    “Come here, Olivia.”
    She took two awkward, tilted steps. When she reached his side, he lifted her chin. She kept her eyes lowered despite his efforts to see into them. “I’m surprised at you defending her, Olivia. The girl has no sense of maidenly modesty. She does not obey even the most basic rules of etiquette. In short, she is a disaster.”
    Olivia flashed him a quick look before she lowered her eyes and said, “I like her, Lion. She’s my friend.”
    Lion sighed. “I cannot argue with that. Very well, Olivia. So long as you do your best to influence her to the good, instead of allowing her to influence you in the other direction.”
    “There is no badness in her, Lion,” Olivia said earnestly. “She has a huge heart, and it is open to everyone.”
    “It’s her mixed-up head that is causing the problems,” he said.
    They were interrupted when Charlotte came bursting through the door with the doctor, Mr. Rowland, right behind her.
    “Charlotte!” Denbigh roared. “What are you doing in my bedroom, and why didn’t you knock?”
    “I brought the doctor,” she said with asperity.
    “A young lady does not enter the bedroom of a gentleman to whom she is not married,” Denbigh retorted.
    “Then