The Dangerous Debutante. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ if I don’t want to have him bring his wrath down on me, which would be stultifyingly boring, to tell you the truth. Now, what about this Tanner’s Roost? It sounds like a thieves’ den.”

      Ethan smiled as he watched Morgan mount the mare. “An interesting observation, Miss Becket, and so eminently gracious. I must remember that, next time my mother tells me how much she admires the name.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      THEY HADN’T GONE a half mile before the thrill of being on Berengaria’s back, even on a sidesaddle, had faded enough for Morgan to wonder what on earth was wrong with her.

      What had caused her to so easily agree to ride off willy-nilly with this man she did not know, to go to a place she did not know, to do—well, nothing was going to happen. The man was an earl, for pity’s sake.

      Or at least he had said so, then had convinced Jacob to trust him. Which wasn’t much of an endorsement, for Jacob trusted her, too.

      At least they were still on the main road, or what she believed to be the main road.

      When she got straight down to it, she didn’t know much of anything. Except that Chance was probably going to ring a peal over her head that her papa would hear all the way back in Romney Marsh.

      No longer able to enjoy her view of the countryside or the fresh, sweet smell of the country air, Morgan slid her gaze toward the earl—if he really was an earl.

      He sat Alejandro as if born to the saddle, controlling the stallion simply by being in that saddle, moving effortlessly, as if the two had become one, man and horse looking so stunningly complete together.

      Morgan felt heat running into her cheeks as another thought struck her. Alejandro and Berengaria also looked good together, the bright and the dark.

      But not as good as she and Ethan Tanner would fit together. Her dark to his light. He, so very English. She, so very Spanish, at least the parts of her she’d taken from her mother. Her true father could have been English, for her skin was lighter than Spencer’s, at least. But her sire could also have been Austrian, or Russian, or any one of the mongrels that had relieved himself of his seed inside her two-penny-a-poke mother.

      No. She wouldn’t think of that. She was Morgan Becket, of Becket Hall. Ainsley Becket was her father. She was who she believed herself to be, and now that she was grown she would become what she wanted to become. A person in her own right, free of the past.

      And what did any of this matter now? She had to keep her concentration on the moment, and this moment seemed terribly important.

      “How do I know you’re really the earl of wherever you said you’re the earl of?” she heard herself ask, her lips moving before her brain could even hope to catch up, let alone shove a gag in her mouth.

      Ethan, who had been amusing himself imagining Morgan Becket’s reaction to meeting his mother—he could learn a lot about her when he saw that reaction—found her question highly amusing.

      “You doubt me, Miss Becket?” he asked as he looked over at her, one eyebrow raised speculatively. “Are you saying that I don’t have the presence, that ineffable air, of a peer of the realm? And that’s Aylesford, by the by. Aylesford’s not much in the great scheme of things, I’ll grant you, but we’re rather proud of it nonetheless.”

      “I’m sure you are,” Morgan said, knowing he meant his words as a bit of a setdown, even a reprimand, and then ignoring that fact as unimportant to the moment. “So, my lord, you were simply out riding?”

      “And then stopping for a cold mug and a slice of ham, yes. Which reminds me, I’m hungry. I believe you’ve made me miss a meal, Miss Becket.”

      “How terrible for you. I seem to have been nothing but trouble to you, my lord. Perhaps we should simply part ways now?”

      Ethan smiled, finally understanding her problem. “You’re afraid of me, Miss Becket? How wrong of you. And, although it’s unconscionably rude to point this out, how very tardy of you. You should have run screaming from me some time ago. It’s miles too late now to think about your possibly precarious position.”

      Morgan laughed, in real delight. “Whose precarious position, my lord? I am quite safe. It’s you who should be concerned. Out here, alone with my protectors.”

      Ethan laughed along with her, happy to see that she was far from missish and wasn’t going to suddenly go all hysterical on him. “You mean that unwashed cub up behind us on your coach?”

      “No, not Jacob. You have him thoroughly cowed, and you’re even proud of your achievement, which you shouldn’t be, because Jacob could be cowed by an angry ladybug. I meant one of my papa’s most trusted men for more years than I’m alive. Saul.”

      Ethan frowned, trying to remember who Saul might be, and then smiled as he recalled a gray-haired hulk of a man who had climbed up into the box with some difficulty, as he carried the weight of too many large dinners with him. “Your coachman? You consider him your protector?”

      “Indeed, yes,” Morgan said, barely able to keep from bouncing in the saddle, because she was about to take that smug, satisfied smile off his lordship’s handsome face. My, how she loved to win! She really ought to consider scraping up some maidenly modesty from somewhere, now that she was to be a debutante. But how boring that would be….

      She turned on the saddle, calling back to the coach, which was no more than twenty yards behind them, as Jacob knew to keep close. “Saul! His lordship would very much like to see Bessie.”

      “Bessie?” Ethan also turned in his saddle, looking back over his shoulder, toward the coachman. “What’s a—my God.”

      Saul, still with the reins wrapped around his beefy hands, had reached down into the depths of the box, to come up with Bessie—a short, lethal-looking crossbow, loaded and ready to loose an equally short, lethal-looking arrow straight into Ethan’s back.

      “Thank—thank you, Saul!” he called out, waving to the man. “Bessie’s…quite beautiful. Truly impressive.”

      Saul, his expression still fierce, lowered the weapon. Ethan couldn’t hold back the relieved sigh that escaped his lips as he looked at Morgan, although he was fairly certain he’d have an itch directly between his shoulder blades until they’d arrived at Tanner’s Roost.

      “Do you have any idea how far one of those arrows can travel?” she asked him, her glee so clear Ethan wondered briefly if Adam hadn’t possibly had second and third thoughts before he took that apple. “I’ve seen Saul put one neatly through a—”

      “Yes, I’m sure you have,” Ethan said quickly, then attempted to turn the conversation to something she’d said earlier, something that interested him very much. “Where did you say Becket Hall is located, Miss Becket?”

      “Romney Marsh, directly on the Channel. Only a few dozen miles from Maidstone as the gull flies, as they say. Or an entire world away from here or anywhere else, as others say.”

      “I’ve been to Camber, if we can really consider that a part of the marsh,” Ethan said, struggling with himself to not take another peek over his shoulder, to see if Saul seemed happy, pleased with his place in the world, and not liable to want to shoot anything at the moment. “That was a few years ago, for an uncle’s СКАЧАТЬ