Read Online No Man's Mistress by Mary Balogh - Free Book Online Page A

aside, turned his hot pillow and thumped it again, tried to find a soft, coolnook for his head, failed miserably, and shivered in the chilly air, which was assaulting his naked body on three sides. The blankets were out of reach unless he sat up to grab them.
    Devil take it, his sleep had been ruined. And she was entirely to blame. Why had she not taken herself off as any decent woman would, or at least taken the week he had offered before he lost his temper, so that he might now be sleeping the peaceful sleep of the just at the Boar's Head in Trellick? Bedamned to her, he thought unchivalrously. She was going to have to learn who was master at Pinewood, and the sooner the better. Today she would learn—when today came. He grimaced as he looked about his bedchamber, into which not even the suggestion of daylight had yet penetrated.
    He sat up on the side of the bed and thrust both hands through his hair again. Dammit, in his more normal life he often had not even gone to bed at this hour. Yet here he was, getting up. To do what, for God's sake? Eat his breakfast? It would serve those servants right—they had
deliberately
sent him off to the village for his dinner last evening—if he went downstairs, loudly demanding food. But they would probably just slap that cold green beef on a plate for him. Read, then? He was not in the mood. Write some letters? But he had scribbled off notes to Tresham and Angie last evening to be sent this morning with the letter to Bamber.
    Ferdinand got to his feet, stretched, yawned until his jaws cracked, and shivered. He would go out for a ride and blow away some cobwebs before coming back and laying down the law. He
enjoyed
early morning rides, after all, he told himself grimly and not altogether truthfully. Anyway, he thought as he strode off in the direction of his dressing room, this hardly qualified asearly morning. It was still the middle of the night, for God's sake.
    He found his riding clothes in one of the wardrobes without ringing for his valet, dressed, and headed for the outdoors without stopping to shave. He had raced the sun, he saw grimly. Although it was no longer quite dark out, the world was lit only by a very gray twilight. It suited his mood to perfection.
    He stalked off to the stables in the fervent hope that there would be a few sleepy grooms there to bark at.
    The cockerel had awakened Viola even though her room was at the back of the house. But then, of course, she had been expecting it and had been sleeping lightly in anticipation of it. It seemed impossible to her that anyone in the house, especially someone whose room overlooked the terrace, could have slept through the alarum. She had chuckled with open malice when, ten or fifteen minutes later, she had heard a door open farther along the corridor and the sound of booted feet receding in the direction of the staircase.
    And then she had dozed off again.
    “His lordship was out the door, fit to be tied, not fifteen minutes after the first cock-crow,” Hannah reported later as she helped Viola dress and braided and coiled her hair. “In a proper rage he was, apparently, when he took his horse out. And then he went galloping off, cursing and scowling, the Lord knows where. You stay out of his way, Miss Vi. You let us servants handle everything this morning.”
    “But I can hardly wait to witness his rage for myself, Hannah,” Viola assured her. “I would not miss thismorning for any consideration. Perhaps by noon he will be on his way back to London and we will be rid of him.”
    Hannah sighed as she straightened the combs and brushes on the dressing table. “I wish it could be that easy, lovey,” she said.
    So did Viola. There was a yawning empty feeling somewhere in the region of her stomach that she was trying hard to ignore. This was not a game she played with Lord Ferdinand Dudley, after all. Her home, her income, her hard-won peace, her very identity were severely at risk.
    Viola was seated at the