Read Online The Redemption of a Dissolute Earl by Julie Johnstone - Free Book Online

never have gotten the man to the Queen’s Head
before Christmas. Thank God Drew and Edgeworth had come by when
they did. If Char had waited for her coachman to rescue her, she
would have truly been good and frozen to death. And then Drew
really would have been destroyed. As Charlotte wrapped blankets
around her coachman and fretted over his twisted ankle, Drew tried
not to glower at the older man. Based on Edgeworth’s smirk, Drew
had not successfully disguised his irritation with the
coachman.
    It was petty to begrudge the hurt man Char’s
nurturing attentions. The fellow had, after all, set out through
the snow to bring help for Char, and of course it wasn’t the clumsy
oaf’s fault he’d stepped in a hole and twisted his ankle. Despite
those facts, Drew couldn’t help the annoyance gripping him. He
wanted nothing more than to be near Char, to feel the heat of her
body, the press of her leg against his, and to be close enough to
smell the scent of freesia that lingered around her and filled his
lungs every time he breathed in.
    Instead of the stolen, precious moments near
her he had anticipated when they set out for the Queen’s Head, he
now sat next to Edgeworth, who smelled like sweat and liquor and
kept stepping on Drew’s foot. The change in his circumstances made
him surly, and when they rode up to the Queen’s Head Inn and he saw
the overflowing courtyard packed with too many carriages to count,
his mood worsened.
    “Oh, dear.” Charlotte leaned forward,
prompting Drew to hurriedly do the same so he could get a whiff of
her heavenly scent. This might be the closest he would get to her
for the rest of the night the way his luck was running. Still his
circumstances were better than they had been mere hours before. At
least now he knew that Char was not married. He would win her back
if it took a lifetime. Though a night was vastly more preferable.
Char frowned out the window then slowly sat back. She turned to
him, her pretty pink lips pulled down in worry. He had to curl his
fingers into a fist so he would not break his oath not to touch her
until they were married. What a damnably stupid oath to make.
    “If the inn’s full, what will we do?”
    “We’ll get them to squeeze us in. Don’t
worry.”
    “Leave it to me,” Edgeworth said, putting on
his gloves. “I’ll simply tell them the Duke of Danby’s
grandchildren have arrived, and they can boot some other riff-raff
out of their room for us.”
    “What a horrid thing to even think of
doing,” Char snapped. “I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m
not.” Her glare landed on Drew like a dagger. He shot Edgeworth a
glare before returning his eyes to Char.
    “The suggestion was not mine.”
    “I’m sure you were thinking it.”
    Drew flinched. He had thought it and quickly
dismissed it, but he would never have dismissed the same thought in
the past. The fact that it had once been true and she still thought
him to be of deplorable, entitled behavior and character made it
all the harder to hear now. He gave Edgeworth a quick jab in his
side for reminding Char what an ass Drew had been in the past.
    “Say, that hurt,” Edgeworth grumbled while
rubbing at his injury.
    Drew didn’t feel the least bit of remorse.
The bloody fool should have known better. Now Char was mad at him
for what he’d done in his past and what Edgeworth had stupidly said
in the present. And Drew was mad at himself because of how much he
knew he had wounded her, that her words to him were constantly
laced with hurt.
    Char shook her head. “I’ll have no part in
your throwing some poor souls out of their rooms. You two—” she
waved her hand at Drew and Edgeworth— “may invoke your
grandfather’s name all you like to the detriment of the riff-raff
better known as commoners. A class, might I remind you, Lord Edgeworth, I am part of.”
    “I’m sorry, Miss Milne. I spoke before I
thought.”
    “A problem since his birth,” Drew
growled.
    “No doubt a