Rebel Baron by Shirl Henke Read Free Book Online

month at Rushcroft Hall, working side by side with his tenant farmers to plant an oat crop. But tariffs no longer protected grains from foreign competition, and cheap grains from the damn Yankees poured into Britain. The profits from the harvest would be so meager that his few remaining tenants faced starvation. Brand had neither the heart nor stomach to take his portion from them.
           But he did have a plan that could rescue them all from perdition. All he needed was money. A great deal of it...
           “Mrs. Auburn will see you, m'lord,” the office mouse said deferentially.
           He might be impoverished but he was still, by God, a bloody baron and he'd act the part to the hilt. Maybe he could bluff this female into doing what none of the male bankers had been willing to do. He strode toward her office as if he owned half of Kentucky and the whole of Surrey.
           And froze in the massive doorway. Brand was barely spared the indignity of having his backside shoved into the office when the secretary closed the door. He had imagined a harridan similar to the portraits of hatchet-faced Yankee suffragettes he'd seen scowling from flyers posted on public buildings from Cincinnati to Saratoga.
           But Miranda Auburn was not an old hag. Far from it. Oh, she was no raving beauty, to be certain, dressed as she was in somber dark gray. The two-piece business suit was fitted crisply to her tall, slender body, although the high neckline and square-cut loose jacket seemed designed to hide any womanly curves. Her hair was pulled severely back into some sort of highly unflattering bun. The color was dark red and might have been quite arresting if the tresses had been arrayed more softly. It was obvious to him that she intentionally denied her femininity. Some gut instinct warned him that that denial meant trouble.
           Always good at assessing people, he tried to decide how to handle her. Her face was more strong than conventionally pretty, but quite striking in spite of its lack of artifice. A pair of perfectly arched eyebrows and thick lashes were a shade darker than her hair. She had high cheekbones and a firmly developed jaw presaging stubbornness. The slightest of smiles indicated straight white teeth and displayed a generous mouth innocent of lip rouge. Eyes a peculiar shade of silver-gray assessed him in return. He could sense the shrewdness in them as she rounded the desk and glided toward him.
           Yes, she's going to be trouble, he thought as he recovered from his surprise and minded his manners, bowing smartly.
           “Lord Rushcroft,” she said in a husky, cultured voice. She surprised him by extending her hand for a firm shake rather than allowing him to press a discreet kiss on its gloved back. Brand disliked being a supplicant to anyone, especially a female. He liked it even less that this female approached him as if she were a man.
           And his equal.
           What was he to make of such an unnatural woman? Bestowing his most winsome smile, he replied, “My pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Auburn.”
           “Please have a seat, my lord,” she said crisply, gesturing toward another of those ugly leather chairs, this one placed in front of her monstrous desk. She immediately turned her back on him and walked around the desk, taking her place behind it. An obvious power ploy if he had ever seen one, and every officer serving under General Wheeler's command had.
           Brand smiled, waiting until she was seated before sinking into the devouring depths of the hellish chair facing her. “Since you arranged this appointment, Mrs. Auburn, I assume you have had the time to consider my proposal,” he said in his most disarmingly genial voice.
           Miranda was struck by his grace once again, the self-assurance with which he moved. But there had been something hesitant, which he had covered very smoothly, when