Douglas: Lord of Heartache by Grace Burrowes Read Free Book Online Page B

or less was, though Douglas’s heart pounded with both exertion and the mortal dread her screams had inspired.
    “I am not all right!” Rose screeched. “Ouch!”
    “I misspoke,” Douglas conceded. “If you will hold still, I will extricate you from those bushes, and all will be well.”
    “All will not be well,” Rose spat back. “I saw a snake and he scared me and then the rose bushes grabbed me and they are using their thorns to bite at me.”
    “What shameful manners,” Douglas observed as he separated Rose’s clothing from the offending bushes. “Tonight their mamas will make them draw pictures of what dire fates can befall rose bushes that bite innocent little girls.”
    “I’ll have the gardeners rip them out,” Rose said. “I’ll put poison on their roots. I’ll plant daisies here that don’t have any old thorns. I’ll let the bugs eat up all the roses, and leaf spot, and beetles, and all manner of awful things.”
    Douglas disentangled Rose from her tormentors, grabbed her elbows, and hoisted her straight up, then swung her out of the flower bed over to the grass.
    “Mama! There was a snake and he scared me and the roses bit me and their mamas must punish them. Cousin Douglas said.”
    She hurled herself against her mother’s skirts; Miss Hollister knelt and brushed dark locks back from Rose’s forehead.
    “Sweetheart?”
    That particular tone of voice was one Douglas had not heard from the lady before—gentle, coaxing, soft, and reassuring. He felt her tone of voice as much as heard it.
    “Yes, Mama?”
    “Was there really, truly a snake?”
    Rose looked away, her bashful expression reminding Douglas of her mother’s similar fleeting bouts of shyness.
    “There was,” Rose decided indignantly. “It was an awful, mean old snake, like in the Bible.”
    “Perhaps you could describe this ferocious serpent?” Douglas suggested.
    Rose thought for a moment, her imagination no doubt warming to the subject. “He was huge and he had mean eyes and he waved his tongue at me.” She demonstrated dramatically. “He was miles long and he hissed steam out his nose and he was green, with great ugly black spots.”
    And of course, this horrible monster was male.
    “A terrifying prospect,” said Douglas, finding it needful to study the pink roses flourishing nearby. “I believe I am familiar with the species. It particularly delights in flinging little girls into rose bushes when they feel a great falsehood coming on.”
    “Let’s go, Mama,” Rose said, tugging on her mother’s hand and shooting Douglas a puzzled look. “I don’t want the snake to come back. Come, Cousin Douglas, or that snake might gobble you up.”
    “I am atremble with trepidation,” he replied, taking the hand Rose proffered. Before he’d escorted the ladies back to the terrace, Rose was off once more, chasing a butterfly.
    While Miss Hollister regarded Douglas with the faintest hint of… a smile . “You are quite the athlete, my lord.”
    “I had never considered what excitement raising a child entails. It is nerve-wracking, is it not? Hornets, snakes, thorns… I’ve known Rose only two days, and she has enlivened my existence considerably.”
    Which was nothing less than the honest and surprising truth.
    “And you hers,” Miss Hollister said, smiling more broadly. Rose was making a complete circuit of the garden at a dead run. “She’s going to fall.” Sure enough, on a tight corner, Rose slid in the grass, got right up, and pelted off.
    “Nerve-wracking. May I call you Guinevere?” Because every occasion when he called her Miss Hollister, he felt a bit uncomfortable for her.
    Put like that, a simple request humbly made, and she was again looking bashful. Douglas wondered how long it had been since a man had asked for the privilege of familiar address with her. Such intimacy was a family member’s privilege, a close friend’s, or… a fiancé’s. “I do not mean to be forward, Miss Hollister, it just