Waking Up With a Rake by Connie Mason, Mia Marlowe Read Free Book Online

much. Don’t move too quickly. If this man recommends you to His Royal Highness, you’ll be a princess. Act like one.
    How should Olivia know how a princess behaved? She could only act like herself. If Lord Rhys didn’t like what he saw, he could look the other way.
    When she rounded the bend in the grand staircase, he came into view, pacing with his hat in his hands in the marble foyer. His garrick caped over his shoulders. If Olivia half-closed her eyes, it seemed the dark coat draped about him like leathery wings, trailing as he paced. He looked even more delicious—and dangerous—than he had yesterday in the parlor, but now a frown marred his brow, and his mouth was set in a tight line.
    What vexes him so?
    She took another few steps and he must have heard her soft tread, for he looked up at her. The frown faded as he swept her with his gaze. A frank glow of masculine approval emanated from him.
    “Miss Symon, you’re so radiant the sun will surely refuse to shine from pure jealousy.”
    “Thank you, milord, but as near as we are to Scotland, the sun rarely puts in an appearance in any case. I fear you’re trying to shine me on with such extravagant praise.”
    “Never think it.” He bowed over her offered hand. This time she’d been careful to wear gloves, but his penetrating gaze made her insides dance as drunkenly as his kiss on her hand had yesterday. “I’ll never lie to you…” and since no one was about, he added almost shyly, “Olivia.”
    She smiled. It was a game, this little secret familiarity of theirs. Even the wager with its hidden stakes added a fizz of excitement. “If you won’t lie, then tell me. Why were you frowning…Rhys?”
    “Was I?” He helped her don her spencer, then led her out the doors with her hand tucked securely into the crook of his elbow. Rhys might not lie, but the sun in the eastern sky did. It promised heat but lent no warmth to the crisp, cold day. Frost crunched underfoot as they strolled around the manor toward the stables.
    “When I was coming down the stairs, you were a veritable storm cloud,” Olivia said, her breath puffing into the air. “What troubles you?”
    “Oh, it’s nothing. Just that project of mine I mentioned yesterday.”
    “The one you likened to my gardening?”
    He nodded, his smile hardening a bit. “Toiling now to gather blossoms later.”
    “It’s not going well?”
    “No, on the contrary, it’s going quite well,” he said. “The problem is that my valet thinks I’m not sure I want it to.”
    He was being cryptic enough she didn’t feel their fledgling friendship permitted further prying. “Now you have me completely confused.”
    “That makes two of us.”
    When they arrived at the stable, Rhys’s mount was waiting for him where he’d left it, with a blanket draped across its withers against the cold. After the ride from town, the horse was already warmed up. The bay gelding stood sixteen hands high with a deep chest and such knowing brown eyes Olivia felt it must surely possess a soul.
    “Oh, what a lovely fellow!” She held out her palm and let him sniff it before she stroked his soft nose.
    “Duncan’s a good lad.” Rhys patted the beast’s strong neck. “I’d say he has the manners of a prince, but I’ve known too many princes and wouldn’t want to insult him.”
    “Is that your way of trying to put me off the Duke of Clarence?”
    “Not at all. Just an observation about princes in general,” he said.
    Olivia really didn’t want to talk about princes, in general or otherwise. The Duke of Clarence was a dissolute stranger in his early fifties. Everything she’d heard about him made her less anxious to learn more. Horses seemed a safe topic.
    “I’ve read that the cavalry favors Thoroughbreds. Did Duncan go to war with you?”
    “No, I took his brother, Dougal.”
    “And now I suppose he’s retired from the military too.”
    A shadow passed over Rhys’s face and his jaw tightened. “I left him on