Read Online The Earl's Honorable Intentions by Deborah Hale - Free Book Online Page A

needed you.”
    The earl looked as if he regretted urging her to speak freely. “You needn’t remind me that I was a poor excuse for a husband and father, Miss Fletcher. No one knows it better than I. But I had a duty I felt obliged to see through.”
    Then, more to himself than to her, he added, “And I am not finished yet.”
    * * *
    What on earth had made him think it would be a good idea to have Miss Fletcher as a companion while he was forcibly bedridden? Gavin asked himself that question as they played a game of backgammon. The rattle of the dice sounded like a mocking chuckle at his folly.
    He had been so busy anticipating her discomfort and wanting to punish her...for what? For caring more about his well-being than he did? For thinking ill of him when he knew she was perfectly justified? For being right and seeing him proven wrong?
    His resentment of the lady was unfair and his wish to penalize her quite unworthy. Now he was getting his just deserts.
    The black-and-white marble disks made a sound like a clicking tongue as they struck one another while being moved across the board. Well, they should reproach him.
    If he’d thought that sparring with Miss Fletcher and needling her would make the time pass quicker, he’d been wrong. For the lady had not hesitated to tell him a few unpalatable truths about himself. He hesitated to provoke her again for fear she would unleash more on him. Tiresome as it might be to lie in bed for days on end with only his painful conscience for company, it was even worse to pass the time with a person whose presence was a continual unspoken reproach.
    Miss Fletcher counted up her final moves under her breath, bringing the last of her counters to their destination.
    “Gammon,” she announced. The softly spoken word betrayed a faint ring of triumph. She had beaten him quite handily. Only backgammon would have been a more humiliating defeat.
    “Congratulations,” Gavin replied in a flat, hollow tone. “You win more than you might have guessed, Miss Fletcher.”
    Her head snapped up. “I beg your pardon? What have I won?”
    Her blue-gray eyes glittered with suspicion at his riddle. Gavin could not deny she had good reason to mistrust him.
    “Your freedom.” He swept the backgammon disks back into the hinged box that served as a playing board. “This imprisonment is tiresome enough for a man like me to bear. Forcing you to suffer with me does not make it easier. Go about your usual duties and leave me to my own miserable devices. It is no worse than I deserve.”
    He expected the lady to greet his announcement with relief. Instead her eyes widened in a look of distress. “Give me another chance. Please, sir. I know I have not been good company for you today, but I promise I will do better.”
    Gavin shook his head. “You mistake me. I am offering you a reward, not a penalty. It takes two to make good company. When I am one of those two, I fear it is a lost cause from the beginning.”
    She pondered his words for a moment, then one corner of her lips inched upward. “That sounds like a challenge.”
    Why did she not simply accept his offer and make her escape? “If you relish attempting the impossible.”
    “Does a good soldier accept defeat before the battle has been properly joined?” That certainly sounded like a challenge—one he was hard-pressed to resist.
    “I would rather fight a battle every day for the next fortnight than this.” Gavin barely stifled a sigh. “There I go falling into self-pity again. You were right to chide me for it. It is as contemptible as it is tiresome.”
    Though she must surely agree, Miss Fletcher refrained from saying so. “You could not have fought a battle every day of that long war. How did you occupy yourself between times?”
    “There was never any difficulty to pass the time.” Gavin thought back to his recent weeks in Nivelle and his years in Portugal and Spain. “There were scarcely enough hours in the day between drilling my