The Savage Miss Saxon by Kasey Michaels Read Free Book Online Page A

reincarnation of Henry VIII!
    Dressed in deep burgundy velvet interspliced with rusty-looking cloth of gold, his neck encircled by a sooty grey ruching of lace and his ample legs encased in faded red stockings that made it look like he had two fat sausages in place of the usual lower appendages, the man fairly sprawled in his chair, a greasy half-eaten chicken leg dangling from one beringed, dimpled hand. His fully bearded face was as big and round as a dinner plate, his two dark eyes looking like berries peeking out of a pastry tart. Topping all this off was a burgundy velvet many-pointed slouch hat that tipped precariously to one side, its lone ratty-looking feather curling rather desultorily in the air.
    “Good God!” Alexandra hissed under her breath to Nicholas. “I don’t believe my own eyes. And you acted like Harold was an oddity—this character makes my black-faced Indian look like a sober Quaker! Why—”
    Nicholas cut her off before her voice rose any higher. “Dub yer mummer,” he whispered, taking a leaf from Billy’s book of cant sayings. “Be quiet and let me do the talking.” Leaving Alexandra where she stood—and she stood like a statue frozen in marble—he approached the  raised platform and bowed deeply from the waist. “Good morrow, Sir Alexander. I regret the intrusion, but I have come on behalf of this damsel here—this damsel in distress, might I add.”
    Sir Alexander nodded his head once in acknowledgment and then lifted the chicken leg to his mouth to take another satisfying bite. Suddenly the food fell from his hand and he leapt up—no mean feat for one of his girth—demanding in what could only be described as a bellow: “ Who in thunder are you? ”
    Nicholas took an involuntary step backward at this unexpected happening, which was lucky for him, as Sir Alexander would have mowed him down in his haste to get a closer look at this female, who was just now drawing herself up in an attitude of belligerence.
    “Answer me, girl!” Sir Alexander commanded yet again. “By Jupiter, I’ll have an answer if I have to wring it out of you!”
    Alexandra’s momentary fright had soon given way to temper—after all, although it was only just gone noon she had already had a perfectly frightful day. Raising herself up to her full height—that “adorable” chin Mannering had remarked on tilted at a pugnacious angle—she replied steadily, “My name is Alexandra Saxon and I am Chas’s daughter. His legal daughter,” she added, making sure she was not to be treated to another barrage of questions as to which side of the blanket her mother had been lying on when she had conceived.
    This speech halted Sir Alexander in his tracks and his florid face paled behind his beard. “Charles’s daughter. You’re the picture of your grandmother. The very picture.” His voice trailed off as he shook his head sadly. “Charles must be dead then. It’s the only reason you’re here now—he swore he’d never set foot in Saxon Hall again.”
    Alexandra’s heart was touched, and she laid a hand on her grandfather’s shoulder, as he was not a tall man for all his commanding air. “Chas died more than six months ago in Philadelphia,” she informed him quietly.
    Nicholas watched with some amazement as a variety of emotions flitted across Sir Alexander’s face, before finally settling itself into an angry mass. “Dead, is it—confound him, that profligate—”
    “Have a care, old man,” Alexandra warned tightly, “that profligate was my father.”
    Alexandra may have looked like her grandmother, Mannering thought randomly, but it was obvious where she got her sweet temper. Stepping in between the two Saxons he soothed, “Now, now, let’s not descend into old quarrels. Sir Alexander, your sons may both be dead now, but at least the Saxon name lives on through this girl here.”
    The old man cocked his head to one side at that thought. “That’s true enough, Linton, I suppose, although only