My Brown-Eyed Earl by Anna Bennett Read Free Book Online Page B

Lord Castleton,” Charlotte said. “When did you two meet?”
    â€œAges ago. We used to be neighbors.” Meg glanced back at the earl. He and his beautiful companion had begun strolling down the path by the lake. She might as well tell Charlotte the whole sordid tale. “I was barely fifteen when—”
    â€œDiana!” Valerie shouted. “Stop!” Several yards away, she stared helplessly as her twin sprinted across the park lawn, head down, her new boots churning up the grass.
    Meg ran to Valerie’s side. “Where’s she going?”
    â€œShe told us to count how long it takes her to run to the other side of the road and back.”
    Meg’s heart plummeted. “That’s Rotten Row.” She lifted the front of her gown and took off, running after Diana. The little girl seemed oblivious to the phaeton careening down the path, pulled by horses galloping like their tails were aflame.
    â€œDiana!” she cried, shouldering her way past a man puffing on a pipe.
    But the girl kept moving, closer to the road and the out-of-control phaeton.
    Her slippers slapping the ground as she ran, Meg gasped for air, and called out again, louder. “Diana!”
    The little girl stumbled to a stop in the middle of the road. She spun around to face Meg, her blond curls blowing in the breeze. Smiling, she raised her hand to wave.
    Then froze.
    She stared wide-eyed at the huge horses barreling down the dirt path toward her.
    Never in her life had Meg felt so powerless. Not when her parents announced she’d marry a man she barely knew. Not when she’d been forced to leave the only home she’d ever known. Not ever.
    She had to reach Diana in time.
    Meg sprinted. She launched herself at Diana, knocking her off her feet. The girl tumbled into the grass, out of danger.
    But Meg’s chest slammed onto the dirt, knocking the breath from her lungs. With the horses almost upon her, she struggled to her feet, but her slipper caught on the hem of her dress, and she landed on her knee with a bone-jarring thud.
    The ground vibrated with the pounding of hooves. Dear God. She was about to be trampled.

 
    Chapter FIVE
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    Her throat thick with dust, Meg couldn’t breathe, much less scream.
    She braced herself for the inevitable pain. She wasn’t ready to die, and yet—
    Whoosh . A blur of dark green dove in front of the horses’ hooves. Bam . A large body landed on top of her, forcing the air from her lungs. Strong hands grasped her shoulders and pulled her away from the hooves, the dust, and the danger.
    She rolled over the ground like a log, the man on top of her one moment, she on top of him the next. And when they finally jolted to a stop beside a row of prickly hedges, both of them clinging to each other and breathing hard, she was on top.
    Meg pressed her hands against the solid wall of his chest, and raised her head to look at her rescuer.
    Lord Castleton. Naturally.
    He wore a lopsided grin that, in spite of her brush with death, made her very aware that he was a man and she was a woman—lying atop him.
    â€œAre you quite well, Miss Lacey?” A polite inquiry on the face of it, but his arched brow and suggestive tone made it wholly improper.
    â€œI believe so,” she rasped. “But Diana—”
    â€œIs fine.” He pushed himself to sitting, holding her firmly on his lap. Concern darkened his brown eyes. “You, however, seem like you could use a glass of brandy.”
    Brandy? “Not at all. That is, I am concerned for Diana.” She swallowed and closed her eyes briefly, to erase the image of what might have been.
    She squashed the strong and sudden urge to cry. What was she doing, pretending to be a governess? Thanks to her incompetence, a little girl had almost died. “I must check on her.”
    Meg clambered off the earl, perhaps not as elegantly as she might have, because he swallowed an oath when her knee came