Read Online Make Me Love You by Johanna Lindsey - Free Book Online

you? Dominic’s stallion isn’t usually friendly to anyone. He’s tried to bite me a time or two.”
    The horse galloped off as Brooke swung around to see Gabriel standing behind her. “I love horses. Perhaps they sense that.”
    He shook his head. “I love horses, too. Who doesn’t, as handy as they are? But that brute still tries to bite anyone who approaches him, carrot in hand or not. Just be cautious if he comes near you again, or just don’t go too close to his fence. He’s king of the roost.” Gabriel laughed and waved his hand behind him. “Like his owner is of all the rest.”
    That didn’t sound like an order, merely friendly advice that she could take or ignore as she pleased, but she nodded. “Have you come to give me a tour of the property?”
    “No, he’s ready to see you.” Gabriel extended an arm toward the house.
    Her feet might as well have just grown roots. She wasn’t moving. “Why?”
    He laughed. “Why? And here I thought you wanted to meet him today.”
    The devil she did. That sick feeling was back, churning in her belly. Dread. She ought to be used to it when she had lived most of her life with it for one reason or another.
    She still couldn’t seem to move and distracted him from noticing by asking, “What exactly is your post here?”
    “I’m a jack-of-all-trades.” He grinned. “I do whatever Dom wants done.”
    She was surprised to hear him speak so familiarly of his lord and to refer to him by a nickname. “You care about him?”
    “Friends usually do.”
    If she hadn’t just met other Biscanes who had claimed Gabriel as a relative, she might have thought he was minor gentry who had latched on to a benefactor. Robert had had one such friend, as hard as it was to believe he had any, who often came home with him and stayed as a guest. Servants, however, didn’t usually consider their employers friends. She’d thought she was unique among the nobility in befriending servants. Her family certainly didn’t. Good grief, did she and Viscount Rothdale have this in common, too?
    “So he’s a likable fellow? I’m so—” Her mouth snapped shut when she saw all humor leave his expression. The knot in her belly tightened. And he didn’t answer her!
    “I don’t mean to rush you, Lady Whitworth, but he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
    “I’m not moving a step without hearing your answer first.”
    Gabriel sighed. “You must know the reason why you are at Rothdale Manor. The hatred for your brother runs deep here.”
    “You share it?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “Why?”
    “You don’t know?”
    “Robert and I don’t speak. I don’t think even my parents know what he did to cause your lord to challenge him to so many duels. Actually, I think Robert fobbed them off by calling it a ‘trifle.’ ”
    Gabriel looked angry when he muttered, “Despicable blackguard.”
    She wholeheartedly agreed, but she wasn’t going to share that with a servant. Maybe he would tell her what had made the viscount challenge her brother. “What did he do?”
    “That isn’t for me to say. I’m sure Dominic will tell you if you ask—actually, you might not want to broach that subject with him, at least not today.”
    “So I’m to be tarred with the same feather as my brother?” she demanded. “Is that what I can expect from this meeting with Lord Wolfe?”
    “I honestly don’t know what you can expect. But if he sends someone else to find you, neither of us will like the results. Do start walking toward the house, please.”
    She did get her feet moving, though slowly, and tried not to dwell on what was about to happen in that house. She turned to Gabriel for distraction. “You have a lot of family that work here.”
    “Not a lot. A few cousins, an uncle, my mother. The Cotterills and the Jakemans have more. Our ancestors lived in and around Rothdale village. You can see it from the west tower, or could, before the tower almost burned down. No one goes in there now. My