Her Man Friday by Elizabeth Bevarly Read Free Book Online

the room.
    Oh, well, she tried to console herself. At least she had managed to keep Mrs. Puddleduck from joining the ranks of Chloe Sandusky's former nannies—a place in dire need of a twelve-step recovery program if ever there was one. She only prayed that she would be able to talk Schuyler into opening his tight fist long enough to eke out a few more dollars per week for the woman.
    "What was that all about?"
    Lily started at the question. Until Mr. Freiberger had uttered it, she had forgotten he was there. Well, almost forgotten, anyway. There was that small matter of his forearms having totally consumed her thoughts. She turned to look at him, only to find him standing with his weight rested on one foot, his hands hooked loosely on his hips, his intense scrutiny warming parts of her body that really had no business warming in polite company. Oh, and she also noticed that his forearms were still way too sexy.
    "That," she said, "was just the latest in a series of troubling developments here at Ashling."
    "I see," he said. "And who exactly is Chloe? Other than a juvenile delinquent, I mean?"
    Lily supposed that if he were going to be working at Ashling for any length of time, he was going to have to be made aware of Chloe's existence sooner or later. Doubtless, there was some kind of OSHA regulation about such a thing.
    She opened her mouth to explain, but the words didn't quite make it out because she was too busy studying the changes in Mr. Freiberger. With his dweeby jacket gone and his ugly necktie all askew like that, he looked quite fetching. His hair was rumpled in a way that was almost sexy, as if some woman had been clutching great handfuls of it in her fingers while he buried his head between her—
    Goodness
, but that was an uncharacteristically lascivious thought she was having. Lily's eyes widened in shock as the graphic image materialized in her brain, but no amount of coaxing would roust it. She shook her head once to clear it, but unfortunately, the image of Mr. Freiberger, um, doing that… to her… came bouncing right back to the forefront of her brain again. She swallowed with some difficulty and made a mental note to have a date with someone. Anyone. Soon.
    "Chloe is Mr. Kimball's ward," she said, telling herself she must have imagined the huskiness her voice seemed to have suddenly adopted.
    "His ward?" Mr. Freiberger echoed doubtfully.
    But Lily wasn't going to offer up specifics of the arrangement to a total stranger, so she only reiterated, "Yes, his ward."
    "What? You mean like Batman and Robin?"
    She narrowed her eyes at him in confusion. "Batman and Robin?"
    He nodded. "Yeah, you know. Like Bruce Wayne's young ward, Dick Grayson?"
    Lily shook her head. "No. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Kimball and Chloe have never donned Spandex and fled from a secret underground entrance to Ashling in a re-engineered Pontiac to rid Gotham City of its unsavory elements."
    Leonard Freiberger offered her a look that was less than tolerant. But he said nothing.
    "Actually," she told him, spurred by his silence, "the situation is more like
Jane Eyre
."
    "Come again?"
    "You know," Lily went on, "the part about Mr. Rochester's ward being the offspring of a French opera girl? Only with Chloe, her mother wasn't a French opera girl. She was a, uh, a cabaret dancer. But she was originally from Versailles, Indiana, for what it's worth."
    Mr. Freiberger's eyebrows shot up at that. "You mean she was a stripper?"
    Lily suddenly wondered if she was due for a manicure, and dropped her gaze to the backs of her hands. "Yes, I believe that is, in fact, what they're called in this country."
    "So Chloe is Mr. Kimball's illegitimate daughter by a stripper from Indiana?"
    Lily continued to study her left cuticles. "Well, I never said
that
."
    "You didn't have to."
    "I didn't?"
    "It was that
Jane Eyre
reference that did it. Just because I'm a bookkeeper, Miss Rigby, doesn't mean I haven't read books."
    She glanced up at that, only