LITMIR.BIZ

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with the reality of the beautiful and seductive young woman who stood before him, wearing only her nightclothes. A young and tempting woman, who conjured up images of bedchambers and lithe and naked bodies intimately entwined amongst tangled sheets—

      Damn it, Amelia Ashford was under Gray’s protection, and as such she was the last woman on earth that he should find himself having such intimate imaginings about! The last woman he should have held in his arms.

      ‘What is your companion Miss Little about,’ he rasped harshly, ‘that she allows you to run about the house at night dressed only in your nightclothes and brandishing a loaded pistol in order to challenge a man whom you believe to be a thief?’

      Whatever Lord Grayson had been thinking during those last few minutes of silence, they had not been pleasant thoughts, Amelia decided ruefully as she heard the hardness of his tone. ‘I am afraid Dotty Little was amongst the first to leave your household.’

      And although Dotty had been employed to be Amelia’s companion when she’d first come to live at Steadley Manor, she could not say she had been sorry when the fussy little woman had departed in a huff some months ago. It had become very tiresome to constantly be told, ‘No, that is not ladylike, Amelia,’ or, ‘No, a lady does not behave in that way, Amelia,’ or, even worse, ‘No, a lady does not look at a gentleman in that way, Amelia,’ if she should happen to glance admiringly at one of the handsome young men who attended the church services on a Sunday.

      No, in spite of the occasional loneliness Amelia had suffered in the months since Dotty’s departure, it had been pleasant to be free of the constant restraint previously placed upon both her behaviour and thoughts.

      Although she could tell by the thunderous scowl upon Lord Grayson’s brow that the knowledge of Dotty’s departure did not meet the same favour in his eyes.

      ‘When did Miss Little leave?’

      ‘Some weeks ago,’ Amelia dismissed uninterestedly. ‘You must be cold and hungry after your journey, My Lord, allow me to go down to the kitchen and prepare you a light repa—’

      ‘How many weeks ago?’

      ‘I am sure that there will be some of the thick stew and freshly baked bread left over from my own supper—’

      ‘How many weeks ago, Amelia?’

      She looked up at him through the curtain of her long lashes. ‘There really is no need for you to raise your voice, My Lord,’ she reproved softly.

      His young ward was, Gray realised, attempting to be everything that was sweetly innocent. Attempting—because after her earlier behaviour he was not fooled for a moment! Believing her to be other than who she was, Gray might have made a mistake in taking her in his arms, but there had been no doubting Amelia’s warm response!

      ‘Perhaps if you were to answer my question I would not feel the need to do so?’ he came back mildly—and just as insincerely! ‘Perhaps,’ he continued grimly, ‘if you had written to me at the time of Miss Little’s departure the situation here would not have become quite so dire as it is!’

      Her eyes widened indignantly. ‘I trust you do not consider me to blame for the servants having departed?’

      ‘No,’ Gray allowed. ‘Only for choosing not to inform me of it.’ He was fully aware of who was to blame for the state of things at Steadley Manor. As he was also aware of the debt of gratitude he owed to Daniel Wycliffe for bringing those problems to his attention. Gray knew he owed the other man an apology at the earliest opportunity …

      ‘I did not—My Lord, there is blood upon the sleeve of your greatcoat!’ his ward gasped, her hand rising to her mouth in alarm, and a look of fascinated horror in those wide and incredulous blue eyes as she stared at his left arm.

      Gray glanced down uninterestedly at the blood-soaked sleeve. ‘That is what usually happens when one has been shot, Amelia.’

      Cheeks that were already smooth and pale as alabaster became even paler still as all the colour drained from his ward’s beautiful heart-shaped face. ‘I—You—Are you saying that I—that I aimed true …?’ Her breasts rapidly rose and fell as she breathed deeply and erratically.

      Gray’s mouth twisted ruefully as Amelia reached out blindly to rest a steadying hand upon the banister. ‘You did not shoot me through the heart, as you threatened to do, but I do believe I have received a flesh wound upon my left arm that may need some attention. I trust you are not about to swoon, Amelia?’ He frowned darkly as he noticed the way his ward had begun to sway on her slippered feet.

      Amelia was very much afraid she was about to do exactly that!

      Except …

      The look of impatient disgust she detected on Lord Grayson’s rakishly handsome face as he scowled down at her was enough to bring her back to her full senses.

      For Amelia to pinch herself at the realisation that Lord Gideon Grayson was actually here, at Steadley Manor, at last.

      Wonderful as her sense of freedom had been after Dotty’s departure, Amelia had recently begun to grow a little tired of languishing alone here in Bedfordshire. Now that Lord Grayson was here she certainly did not intend behaving like a complete ninny by fainting at his feet. Bad enough, surely, that after all the years of waiting for this moment she had actually shot Lord Grayson within minutes of first meeting him!

      ‘Certainly not, My Lord,’ Amelia assured him briskly. ‘I was merely overcome for a moment, that is all. We will go to my bedchamber—’

      ‘For what purpose, might I ask?’ He lowered dark and reproving brows.

      She gave him a frowning glance. ‘Only because there is a fire alight in there to warm you and to ensure that you do not suffer from shock as well as loss of blood.’

      The only shock that Gray was suffering was in finding that this seductive young woman—and she was most certainly a woman, and not a child!—was his ward. A woman he had held in his arms only minutes ago. Intimately.

      ‘The water remaining in the jug following my own ablutions should still be tepid, at least.’ She ignored Gray’s scowl as she moved to his side and placed his uninjured arm across her shoulders before picking up the candle to light their way.

      Amelia Ashford was definitely a plucky little thing, Gray acknowledged with reluctance. Not that it had ever been in any doubt, after the way she had faced him down with a pistol earlier—and actually succeeded in pinking his arm, too!

      Gray had been vaguely aware, following the retort of the pistol, of a little discomfort in his left arm, but as it had only been slight—like the stinging of an angry bee—he had as quickly dismissed it. It was, however, starting to hurt like the very devil now that he had been reminded of it!

      Damn it, if any of Gray’s male acquaintances in the ton—heaven forbid any of his friends amongst the St Claire family!—ever learnt that he had been shot and wounded by his delicate slip of a ward, he would never live it down. Would find himself the butt of their jokes for years to come.

      He attempted to extract his arm from about those slender shoulders. ‘I assure you it is only a flesh wound, Amelia—’

      ‘A flesh wound that needs to be bathed and bandaged.’ She continued to doggedly guide his progress along the shadowy hallway.

      ‘I am perfectly capable of walking unaided,’ Gray snapped in his irritation with the idea that Amelia seemed to have acquired that he in any way needed her questionable assistance.

      Damn it, he was only eight and twenty—in the prime of his life—not some decrepit old man incapable of walking simply because he had received a graze upon his arm from a pistol shot. Besides, he had received and as quickly recovered from wounds that had been much more serious than this one …

      ‘I am sure that you are, Lord Grayson,’ that honeyed voice soothed patronisingly. ‘I am merely endeavouring, as you do not know the way, to guide you to my bedchamber.’

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