Once Tempted by Elizabeth Boyle Read Free Book Online Page A

bowing his head slightly. “I’m afraid I lost track of the time.”
    “I can’t imagine why.” She sent another annoyed glance toward Aquiles, as if she blamed him for Robert’s tardiness. “But do hurry. Lady Colyer is bringing her daughter, and it would be so nice if you would make a good impression.”
    At this blatant matchmaking, Aquiles started to chortle.
    “Don’t you have some work to mind?” she shot at Robert’s batman. “Perhaps something useful?”
    The man grinned. “I probably do.” He bobbed his head at her. “My lord. My lady,” he said, sending Lady Bradstone a saucy wink.
    “That man is odious,” Lady Bradstone started in before Aquiles was even out of earshot. “He slinks about the house like a cat. I never know when he is going to turn up. It quite unnerves me. And I don’t like the way he leers at the younger maids. He should have been dismissed the day you returned and sent back to that Papist country of his.”
    “He is in my employ,” Robert told her. They’d had this discussion before. “I will remind you again that he saved my life.”
    She sighed loudly. “I suppose I should be grateful for that. Just see that he remembers his place.” Her hands, moving in nervous flutters, fussed over his still undonned evening clothes. “I’ll send Babbit in immediately. I don’t see how you thought you were going to get dressed with that pirate helping you.”
    Robert forced a smile on his face. “Thank you, madam,” he told her, unable to drive the word “mother” past his lips. It was the one part of this deception he couldn’t condone. He only hoped she wouldn’t notice.
    She did.
    “Oh, Robert, you needn’t be so formal with me!” she scolded, hustling across the room and wrapping him into her soft embrace. “I am your mother.” She looked up at him, her brows creasing with a hint of worry. Reaching up, she brushed a stray lock of his hair out of his face. “You’ve changed. I blame those horrible Frenchies for locking you away all these years. But you’re home now, and you’ll be your old self in no time, my dearest boy.” She released him and left the room as she had arrived in a blowsy breeze of violet scent and fluttering lace.
    Robert forced a more sincere smile on his face as she departed. Even if the lady wasn’t his mother, she was still his aunt and as such deserved a modicum of consideration.
    He quickly set about getting himself dressed as best he could before Babbit arrived and went into a state over the condition of his now wrinkled shirt—a garment that would barely be seen beneath the acres of lace in his cravat and his waistcoat.
    As he struggled into his coat, a garment that more resembled a strait jacket than what he would consider fashion, his thoughts turned back to finding Miss Sutton. Pymm’s description of the girl had been rather vague, fitting half the misses in London. Not overly pretty, plain features, hair the color of a farthing.
    Still, despite this less than distinguishing description, someone had to know where the chit was—women didn’t just disappear into thin air. A man, now, that was entirely different—but a seventeen-year-old girl with no experience in the world? It was unfathomable that she could just vanish.
    Then again, perhaps Aquiles was right. She might have met with foul play. There wasn’t any reason to believe that Bradstone wasn’t capable of having her removed from his path as well.
    Behind him the door opened and closed quietly.
    He paused for a moment, awaiting the impending explosion from his volatile valet, but none came.
    “I’m almost ready, Babbit. You needn’t have bothered,” he told the man.
    Then came a sound that Robert had heard too many times in his military career not to have it leave every hair on the back of his neck standing on end.
    It was the defiant snap of a pistol being cocked.
    It hadn’t been hard for Olivia to find Robert’s bedchamber.
    Robert had sneaked her up to this very