My Lady, My Lord by Katharine Ashe Read Free Book Online

donning—”Thank you”—she’d started back, nearly knocking the poor fellow off his stool. Since her shock at hearing Ian Chance’s voice emanate from her throat wasn’t nearly as great as the shock of waking up in an unfamiliar bed in the body of a naked man, she’d recovered quickly enough to apologize.
    “Is it?” Her baritone quavered.
    The woman nodded.
    Corinna took another step forward. Then another. The woman that looked like her did not back away. But she still didn’t speak.
    “Well,” Corinna put her hands on her hips. “Say something.”
    Her—
his
gaze shifted to her fists on her narrow male hips. It seemed to jolt him out of his reverie.
    “What would you have me say?” The woman’s lips—her lips—
his
—barely moved. The voice was a bit higher than it should be, and clearer.
    “Who are you?” Corinna ventured.
    “You know who I am.” The hazel eyes seemed bemused. But the tone was unmistakably, horridly familiar.
    Cold fear lodged in Corinna’s belly. “Ian Chance,” she whispered.
    The woman nodded.
He
nodded.
    “Then this is not a horrible dream?”
    “Apparently not.”
    Really, her voice was quite nice from a distance, not nearly as severe as she imagined it, though the set of her features was unquestionably displeased. Corinna’s perspiration had gone cold. The ramblings of madmen began this way.
    “This cannot be,” she said, the cravat tightening around her neck. “This is irrational. Impossible.”
    “And yet here we are.” Toneless this time.
    “You are playing a prank on me.”
    “How, I wonder, do you imagine that
this
would amuse me in the slightest?”
    “Can’t you lay off insulting me for even one moment?” Her voice broke. It sounded very strange, at once strong and rough. She tried to form rational words. “Why were you so long in meeting me?”
    “Your blasted toilette takes more time to complete than an entire hunt.”
    “You’ve been dressing for
four hours
?”
    “Four hours? No, probably three quarters of one.”
    “Then why did you delay replying to my note?”
    “I replied the instant the maid put it beneath my nose. I only just awoke,” he said stiffly, though she couldn’t imagine why he thought he could be on his high ropes with her.
    “Just now? Three-quarters of an hour ago?” she exclaimed with a full measure of indignation in her masculine voice. “I have been awake since eleven o’clock. If not for your apparent debauchery last night it would have been earlier. I would have sent another note, but frankly I barely knew if I should. Why did you wish to meet here?”
    “I didn’t want anyone to see me”—he gestured toward her, toward his body that she inhabited—”entering your house.”
    Corinna’s stomach twisted. “And you think this public quarrel a better alternative?”
    “I thought you enjoyed quarreling. You and your prosy friends do it all day and night.”
    “We do not quarrel. We discuss.”
    “Oh, well, forgive my eternal ignorance.” He made a mocking bow, which looked absolutely ridiculous of her body.
    “Perhaps you can endeavor to not impose it upon me with such regularity. And ladies do not bow. They curtsy. You
are
a cretin, aren’t you?”
    “I may be a cretin, but I’m not a lady.”
    “You are now!” She put her hands to her face—her large, strong man’s hands. She stared at the palms in horror. “Oh, God. What are we talking about? This is insane. What am I going to do?”
    “Good God, what are you doing?” He moved forward swiftly, grabbed her hand, and yanked it away from her face.
His
hand.
His
face. Her own face staring back at her with wide, panicked eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re about to cry,” he said in her warning tone.
    A sob shook Corinna’s chest, thick and tight, like there was considerably more chest to sob from and it wasn’t much accustomed to it.
    “I will cry if I must,” she said upon a quaver, the likes of which she had only ever heard once in her life,