Read Online Linda Needham by My Wicked Earl - Free Book Online Page A

hers. This machine was vastly important to her, a treasure she’d do most anything to hold onto. At least he hoped it was so.
    “Don’t be absurd, madam.”
    “If my Stanhope lies around in your stables in pieces, it’ll be doomed to rust in the damp and be useless to me or to anyone.” She was an unwavering advocate, pacing in front of him in flannel that caught against her ankles and her calves, that clung to her thighs and tempted him.
    “You can’t use your printing press, madam. It’s evidence against your husband, in case you’ve forgotten.”
    “It can’t very well be evidence against anyone if it’s stored away improperly, dismantled and left without its signature.”
    “Which is?”
    “Every press leaves its own mark. The imprint of the platen, flaws in the type itself.” She braced her fists against her hips as she studied him. “Besides, I’m only being practical.”
    Entirely diabolical, Miss Finch. But he needed her to convince herself that this arrangement was her idea, not his.
    “Tell me, madam: how can allowing the devoted wife of a dangerously seditious radical access to her printing press be anything approaching practical?”
    “Well…” She plunked herself down on the bench at the foot of his bed, tucked her hands between her knees. “Your commission needs the press assembled and working.”
    “Does it?”
    “Yes, and I need to make a living.”
    She was as treacherously clever as she was beautiful. May her husband rot in hell.
    “What’s my guarantee against your conspiring with your husband to use your press against me?”
    “I assume you’d be watching me every moment.”
    He’d watch her every bloody moment, if he could stand it, if he didn’t succumb to his baser instincts.
    “Besides, it’s autumn, my lord.”
    “And that means?”
    “The busiest time of year for me. I’ve got orders for all kinds of projects to keep me until well past winter. It’s money that I’ll need to keep a roof over my head when this horrible ordeal is finished and my beloved fool of a husband is caught and tried and hanged and I’m left a helpless widow.”
    Helpless. He couldn’t imagine that.
    “And if I agree to this enterprise, where do you plan to live while you’re working here?”
    “Oh! Well.” Her eyes had grown bright and large with the scent of her success. “In the village, I suppose. Someone will take me in.”
    “It’s eight miles from here. And I doubt you’ll find a place there.”
    “I can sleep in the barn.”
    No doubt the woman would do just that if he allowed it. “That won’t be necessary. The gatehouse is vacant. It’s small and hasn’t been used in years, but it’s watertight and warm, I’m told.”
    A wary look came to her eyes. “The gatehouse? You’d allow that?”
    “I would insist.”
    That drew a frown from her, the shadowy hint of suspicion. “Is there room enough for my Stanhope? I need a large space with heat and—”
    “I’m not a fool, madam.” Or was he an utter and complete lunatic? To risk his strategy on a woman who enchanted him, who tempted him. “You can set up your printing press in my carriage house in the courtyard. You work while I’m there, and you don’t when I’m not.”
    “No.” Now she was frowning again, shaking her head and all those curls. “It would have to be in the house.”
    Even better. “Why is that?”
    “Out of the damp and the cold. For the ink and the paper, too. And I’ll need somewhere with loads of light and room enough for drying.”
    “Your laundry, I suppose.”
    “The printed pages. The ink smears easily and needs a full twenty-four hours to dry.”
    He could see it all now, his silent house becoming a printing shop and Miss Finch the mistress of it all. “The conservatory, then, under lock and key. I will approve every project before itgoes out. Without negotiation, madam. Is it agreed?”
    He watched a rainbow of doubt and hope cross her features, and was pleased beyond measure