Read Online In Bed with the Duke by Annie Burrows - Free Book Online Page A

to swindle an heiress out of her inheritance? Or solving the mystery of how we ended up naked in the same bed together?’
    She wished he wouldn’t keep harping on about the naked part of it. How did he expect her to look him in the eye or hold a sensible conversation when he kept reminding her that she’d been naked ?
    She had to change the subject.
    â€˜Pardon me for pointing it out,’ she said, indicating his black eye and then the grazes on his knuckles, ‘but you don’t look to me as though you have been leading what you call a dull sort of existence.’
    â€˜Oh, this?’ He chuckled as he flexed his bruised hands. ‘This was the start of my adventure, actually. I’d gone up to Manchester to deal with a...ah...a situation that had come to my attention. I was on my way...er...to meet someone and report back when I...’ He looked a bit sheepish. ‘Well, to be perfectly honest I took a wrong turning. That’s why I ended up at that benighted inn last night. So Hugo couldn’t have done it!’ He slapped the table. ‘Of course he couldn’t.’ He smiled at her. ‘Well, that’s a relief. I shan’t have to hold him to account for what has happened to you. I don’t think I could have forgiven him this.’
    His smile faded. He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret, then glared balefully at his empty tankard.
    He took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to take you to the place where I’ve arranged to meet him. Straight away.’
    She wasn’t at all sure she liked the sound of that.
    â€˜Excuse me, but I’m not convinced that is the right thing to do.’
    â€˜I beg your pardon?’ He looked completely stunned. ‘Why should you not wish to go there?’
    â€˜I know nothing about it, that’s why.’ And precious little about him , except that he had recently been in a fight and was being downright shifty about what it had been about.
    Oh, yes—and she knew what he looked like naked.
    â€˜It is a very comfortable property in which a relative of mine lives,’ he snapped. ‘A sort of aunt.’
    She gave an involuntary shiver.
    â€˜You need not be afraid of her. Well...’ He rubbed his nose with his thumb. ‘I suppose some people do find her impossible, but she won’t behave the way your aunt did—I can promise you that.’
    â€˜I would rather,’ she said tartly, ‘not have anything to do with any sort of aunt—particularly one you freely admit is impossible.’
    â€˜Nevertheless,’ he said firmly, ‘she can provide you with clean clothes, and we will both enjoy good food and comfortable beds. In rooms that nobody will invade,’ he said with a sort of muted anger, ‘the way they did at The Bull. And then, once we are rested and recovered, I can contact people who will be able to get to the bottom of the crime being perpetrated against you.’
    â€˜Will you? I mean...thank you very much,’ she added doubtfully.
    If he really did mean to take her to the home of a female relative who lived in some comfort, even if she was a touch difficult to get on with, and contact people on her behalf to right the wrongs done her, then it was the best thing she could think of.
    It was just that coming from a man with a black eye and bruised knuckles it sounded a bit too good to be true.
    He shot her a piercing glance. ‘Don’t you believe me?’
    â€˜I am sorry,’ she said, a touch defiantly. ‘But I am having trouble believing anything that has happened today. But if you say you mean to help me, then I shall...’ She paused, because she’d been brought up to be very truthful. ‘I shall try to believe you mean it.’
    â€˜Of course I mean it. Your guardians picked the wrong man to use as their dupe when they deposited you in my bed. I will make them rue the day they attempted to cross swords with me