Ready & Willing by Elizabeth Bevarly Read Free Book Online Page B

“my valet. He served me well for nearly forty years.” His expression darkened some. “Of course, I had no idea the man was stealing from me at the time.”
    Audrey had no idea how to reply to that. So all she said was, “Gee, guess good help was hard to find in your day, too, huh?”
    All Silas said in response to that was, “Come with me to his room.” He made a face, then corrected himself again, “To his former room. I believe you’re currently using it to store supplies.”
    Oh, that room, Audrey thought. The one that was little more than closet-sized and claimed only one tiny window and was wedged into a corner of the second floor at the opposite end of the house from the bathroom. Audrey had thought it too small and bleak to even use it for her office. No wonder Bellamy had stolen from his employer.
    Silas suddenly frowned, as if she’d spoken that last aloud. Then, as if to illustrate that very thing, he asked, “You think theft is an excusable offense, Mrs. Magill?”
    Whoa. Now her hallucination could read her mind? Well, that was going to be inconvenient. Not to mention irritating. And embarrassing, too, on those occasions when she got Backstreet Boys songs stuck in her head.
    She gave her forehead a good mental smack. Well, of course her hallucination could read her mind , she thought. That was, after all, where it had originated. Naturally it would have access to anything else that might be parading around in her head.
    Not sure why she was continuing a dialogue with a figment of her imagination, she replied anyway, “No, I don’t think theft is excusable. Well, unless you and your family are starving to death like Jean Valjean or something. I just meant, you know, if you’d given the guy a better room, he might have shown you better service.”
    “He might also have done that had he not been a damnable cur.”
    Yeah, okay. There was that. Point to the hallucination.
    The hallucination in question smiled suddenly, doubtless because he had read her mind again, and something about the smile made her toes curl. It was amazing how much he looked like his great-great-however-many-greats grandson when he did that.
    Not that that was what made Audrey’s toes curl, no way. Heat in the pit of her stomach notwithstanding, Nathaniel Summerfield was the most odious man she’d ever met. He was everything she disliked in the opposite sex, epitomized all those things that gave the male gender a bad name. Overbearing, arrogant, short-tempered, self-important, more than a little sexist . . . The list could go on forever. The moment she’d stepped into his office and seen that it had been decorated by the design firm of Testosterone and Cash, Unlimited, she’d been reminded of all the reasons she’d left the corporate workforce behind. It was more than clear that what mattered most to Nathaniel Summerfield was money. And that power was a close second. For all she knew, those were the only things that mattered to him.
    But he had smiled at her, she couldn’t quite help recalling. Once. When she’d first come into the room, as he’d told her hello. And when she’d seen that smile . . .
    Well. Suffice it to say something inside her had stirred to life that hadn’t inhaled a single breath since Sean’s death.
    She shook the memory off almost literally, reminding herself she had a hallucination to dispel and some sanity to check. Captain Summerfield still stood before her, watching her with a curious expression.
    “You found him handsome, my grandson?” he asked.
    Audrey’s mouth dropped open at that. “Of course not,” she hotly denied. Okay, so there was more than Backstreet Boys songs that could embarrass her. Except that she hadn’t been attracted to his grandson, she reminded herself. Which just went to prove that hallucinations didn’t know everything. So there.
    “If you must know, I found him loathsome, your grandson,” Audrey added. “And I don’t think you need to be worried about him