Free Anne O'Brien by The Enigmatic Rake

coloured pictures of animals and birds.’ If anything would create a bond between them, this might be the answer. At least it would put them in the same room together. But would he refuse? Would he say that it was her responsibility to entertain and educate his daughter?
    ‘Of course. Let her come.’ He would have turned away, the matter as far as he was concerned settled.
    ‘Also,’ she added as an apparent afterthought, ‘she enjoys stories.’
    ‘Are you suggesting, then, that I should read to her?’ The Faringdon brows rose.
    ‘It is not my position to suggest that, sir.’
    ‘No? You are, after all, her governess.’ A line marred his brow as his attention was caught by this fair lady who had such an air of insistence about her.
    ‘Beth will enjoy it, sir.’
    ‘Beth?’ The brows rose again.
    ‘Forgive me, my lord.’ Sarah sighed inwardly. She had forgotten her somewhat high-handed change of the child’s name. ‘Celestine. It is just that John does not pronounce it well. And she enjoys being called Beth.’ He would probably demur, she decided as she awaited his reply. It might be that it was a family name that he would wish to keep.
    ‘I see.’ He narrowed his eyes at his housekeeper. Neat and self-effacing, yet supremely competent, as he always saw her. But with a strong managing streak, it would seem. He felt as he came under the gaze of her guileless blue eyes that he had been penned very neatly into a corner, although for what purpose he was unsure. Even to the change of name of his daughter! But if it was acceptable to the child…
    ‘Then Beth it shall be. Let her come here, as I said.’
    In considerable relief at this anticlimax, Sarah curtsied and turned to go, leaving Lord Joshua to return to his seat by the window. Without thought, he moved awkwardly so that he took his full weight on his damaged hip, staggered a little, and in so doing brushed against a book on the edge of his desk. It fell to the floor, a minor mishap. Sarah’s immediate instinct was to pick it up.
    ‘Leave it.’ The order was instant and harsh. ‘I am not a cripple.’
    Tension, sharp and diamond bright, crackled in the still room.
    ‘I was never under an impression that you were, my lord,’ Sarah replied immediately, as if the tone had not startled her. She bent to pick up the book.
    ‘Leave it, I said.’
    She straightened, eyes wide on his face. ‘But why, my lord? There is no need for you to stoop, to put added pressure on your strained joint. It would be foolish of you to do so.’ For a brief moment she saw the raw, unguarded expression in his eyes. A sharp physical pain. But an even sharper humiliation. And she understood without words that such a man would detest his dependence on others. Her instinct, her driving need, was to approach him. To touch, offer comfort, soothe with soft hands and kind words. But she could not. She was a servant and it was not her place. And he was not, she thought, a man to accept such comfort.
    Lord Joshua stiffened under the gentle but totally unexpected reprimand. She was looking at him, he realised, as if he were a spoilt child in her care, one who had been ill mannered enough to reject a kind offer. And she was right, of course, he accepted with a disgust as the housekeeper continued to upbraid him with perfect propriety. ‘I am employed as your housekeeper to pick up after you, my lord.’
    ‘Yet you will disobey me, Mrs Russell.’ Inner fury still vibrated through his body.
    ‘You can, of course, dismiss me if that is your will, sir. For picking up a book.’ There was the faintest question, a suggestion of censure in her voice and her composure challenged him. He flushed with a sense of shame, even as her forthright words earned Sarah a sharp glance. But he had seen the stupidity of his rejection of her help, born of lack of patience and clumsy frustration at his inability to move about with the readiness of before, his incarceration within the four walls when used