Read Online Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine by Jayne Fresina - Free Book Online

advance,” she sputtered, wrapping her bonnet ribbons around her fingers. “Besides, your hands are dirty,” she added with a grand flourish, as if she’d been searching for more insults. “Dreadful, impertinent man.”
    His hands were dirty? Was that the best she could do?
    He gave her a moment, and when that produced no further comment, he took matters into his own filthy hands.
    Bending his knees slightly, he scooped her up again, this time vertically, with his arms around her hips, and carried her back across the puddle. He set her down again, doffed an imaginary hat, and left her there as he walked onward down the lane. He had no doubt the ungrateful wench watched him go, so he kept his gaze forward and resumed his merry whistle.

Chapter 7
    As the day wore on, the sky brightened, not a cloud in sight. Then, slowly, it began to soften, like a watercolor painting that became too wet and crinkled the paper. By late afternoon, Lazarus’s view of the horizon from the roof of the farmhouse rippled with merging, fuzzy layers of blush-pink, cobalt blue, and burnished copper. The busy birds still chirped, but less frantically now, their notes dampened and warped like the sun.
    Lazarus was taking a short break and sitting astride the peak of his roof, when he spied Henry Valentine arriving at his gate to yank impatiently on the bell rope. He’d expected this visit yesterday, but evidently, Valentine had decided to make him wait. Fine. If that was the way he wanted to play. Lazarus would let Tuck deal with him first. He’d finish his work and then go down. Mr. Henry Valentine could take his turn waiting.
    In answer to repeated clangs of the bell, Tuck finally emerged from the house, his ambling, crooked gait in no hurry.
    Henry bellowed through the iron bars of the gate, “I haven’t all blessed day. Where is he?”
    â€œHold yer horses,” Tuck exclaimed, moving no faster, plainly careless of Valentine’s noble pretensions.
    Lazarus smiled as he felt the hot blast of Henry’s frustration even from that distance. Tuck unlocked the gate, and Henry barged ahead into the house, leaving the old man to hobble after.
    Almost half an hour later, Lazarus strolled leisurely through the farmhouse door, a jolly whistle on his lips. He saw Henry seated by the window, gripping his cane in both hands and rattling on about his time being very important. At the sound of the door opening and Lazarus’s careless whistle, Henry stiffly turned in his seat. Shock and horror quickly consumed his features, and Lazarus wondered if it would have been proper to put his shirt on before he came in. It hadn’t occurred to him. He tried to keep that shirt as clean as possible, so he never wore it when working around the house and farm.
    Henry’s gaze fell to the small bump on Lazarus’s bare chest before it swept back upward. Recognition must have slapped him hard and quick when he realized this was the man he’d recently encountered lurking under a lantern outside Morecroft Gentleman’s Club. The man who knew he was in debt.
    He rose quickly. “Kane, I presume!”
    Still wiping his hands on an old rag, Lazarus nodded his head. “And who might you be?”
    Henry tapped his stick indignantly upon the flagstones. “I, young man, am Henry Valentine.”
    â€œAh,” Lazarus said slowly. Of course he knew who it was standing in his house, but he made the man admit it this time. “Please forgive my state of undress…” He extended a hand toward Henry, the great bulk of muscle in his arm and shoulder making the gesture rather more menacing than welcoming.
    â€œI’ve waited here long enough,” Henry snapped. “I have many other matters of business today, so I shall tally no longer and get directly to the point.”
    Lazarus retrieved his unaccepted hand. “I’m grateful for your haste, Valentine. I, too, am