Chance the Winds of Fortune by Laurie McBain Read Free Book Online Page B

wind and stepped from hiding. Leaves clung to his blue velvet breeches, and what looked suspiciously like blackberry juice stained his white shirt front.
    â€œI see you have been more than busy today,” Rhea Claire commented as she looked him over. “What happened to Saunders and Shoopiltee?” she asked while she rubbed a smudge of dirt from Robin’s cheek. “He was after your hide.”
    Robin sighed. “Shoopiltee got hungry, and I couldn’t get him to budge another step, and so Saunders caught up with us in the herb garden.” Robin laughed suddenly, remembering Lord Rendale. “He sure looked funny stalking off with his stockings rolling down around his ankles. I wonder what Father will say when he sees stuffy ol’ Rendale walk into the hall soaking wet?” he asked, giggling. “I bet Mason will be horrified at the sight of the earl. Maybe he’ll even make him enter by the servants’ entrance,” he speculated excitedly before dissolving into uncontrollable giggles.
    Rhea Claire smothered her own laughter as she thought of Mason, their very proper butler. Robin was right, he would be horrified at the sight of the earl leaving puddles in his spotlessly polished entrance hall.
    â€œIf I were you, Robin, I’d be worrying more about what Father will be saying to you ,” Rhea Claire warned him, thinking of the cold displeasure that could settle on the duke’s occasionally austere face. “He will be most displeased.”
    Robin shrugged his narrow shoulders, remaining unconcerned. “No, he won’t. He doesn’t even like the earl. Heard him telling Mother the other day that the man was better suited to be the Earl of Duncedom than Rendale. Said he was a-a,” Robin said, pausing and frowning as he tried to remember the exact words, “pompous dunderhead!”
    â€œRobin!” Rhea Claire said indignantly. “How dare you repeat such a thing,” she warned him, but they both knew it was a weak reprimand when a chuckle escaped from her tightly compressed lips. “You brat,” she said fondly, and rumpled his curls. “I don’t know why I put up with you. You are always in trouble of some kind, and those ears of yours, Master Jackanapes, will get you in over your head one of these fine days.”
    â€œYou’re not really going to marry the earl, are you, Rhea?” Robin asked. “I don’t think anyone really likes him. And I know that Father doesn’t at all.”
    â€œNow that is enough, Robin,” Rhea told him seriously. “I have not decided yet. Besides, just because others do not care for him, why should that matter to me? I make my own decisions, and I happen to think that the earl needs a few friends. I suspect he is quite lonely.” Now Rhea Claire was defending him against her own thoughts of late about accepting the proposal she knew would be forthcoming from him. “I really don’t dislike Wesley. He’s quite a gentleman, and far more likable than all of those aging roués I met in London. I could certainly do far worse.”
    â€œOr far better, I suspect. But you don’t say love, and isn’t that what should be important, Rhea?” asked Francis Dominick, eldest son and heir of the Duke of Camareigh, as he stepped through the gaping hedge. “Lord, what a mess! Saunders is still muttering about all of this, not to mention old Mason, who’s in high dudgeon up at the house. What a ruckus. I don’t think Lord Rendale will ever be the same, although it probably did him a wonder of good to get knocked down a notch or two. Far too serious a fellow, your earl, Rhea,” Francis said, succinctly summing up his sister’s suitor.
    â€œHe is not my earl,” Rhea retorted, stung. She was a year older than her brother Francis, who, at sixteen, stood a good foot taller than she did.
    â€œWell, he would certainly like to be,” Francis