Free The Bachelor's Bargain by Catherine Palmer

Fashion. Grand dinners. The royal court. All of them a great waste of time. Ruel had found his education boring, most of his peers simpering, and his prospects for the future deadly dull. Travel, adventure, and gambling—whether at cards or in speculative exploits—were the only things that interested him.
    He cared little for life, his own or that of others. He had wounded two men in duels, several more during a fracas in America, another at the gaming table. He disregarded his own existence, and he had almost lost his life more than once. In fact, he realized as he looked down at the young lady who lay in his lap, a sizable number of men would be happy to see him dead.
    Why did the thought of losing this woman send an aching emptiness through his chest? She was only Anne Webster . . . only a maid . . .
    He tried to straighten the bonnet that had slipped askew during the shooting. A ribbon of her hair had fallen out and lay across her shoulder. He picked it up and draped it over the back of his hand. As light as silk, it gleamed with golden highlights in the late-morning sunshine. Chocolate laced with cinnamon, he had called the color. No wonder Anne Webster disdained him.
    The bonnet refused to go right, so Ruel pulled it off and let her hair spill across his thigh. He traced one finger over each of her eyebrows, marveling at the way they echoed the upward-tilted shape of her almond eyes. She was a housemaid, a minister’s daughter, a laceworker. She ought not to have those lips. So full, though pale now, they all but begged to be kissed.
    Had any man ever kissed Miss Anne Webster? He thought not. The tone in her voice warned men away. The tilt to her chin instructed them to keep hands off. Even the design of her simple cotton gown spoke of her maidenhood. Where most women enjoyed the current fashion of necklines cut as low as possible and waists cut as high as possible, Anne wore a modest bodice covered by a discreet cotton shawl. She was as untouched and new as that crocus growing beside the hedge.
    Swallowing at the hard lump that had somehow lodged in his throat, Ruel stared down at her leg. Slender, firm, and white, it was a sharp contrast to the deeply tanned skin of his own hands. He had seen women’s legs, lots of them. But Anne Webster’s leg was not meant for his eyes. He tugged at her skirt, yet it was too torn and bloodied to cover her.
    “Blast it all.” He shut his eyes, searching for answers. In the blackness he saw nothing. Emptiness. Void.
    When he lifted his head again, he saw that she was staring at him. Her eyes were a deep shade of brown, the lashes long and black around them. She took a breath, and her face contorted in pain.
    “My leg hurts.”
    “Do not move it.”
    She bit back tears. “Where is Miss Watson? She is not well.”
    “Well enough to run for my chaise and the doctor.”
    “Never mind a doctor,” she murmured. “I am prepared to die.”
    “You are not going to die.”
    “I believe I shall, sir.”
    “No.” He leaned over her and took her face in both his hands. “No, Anne Webster, you will not. You will get into the chaise and go to Slocombe. You will recover and make lace panels and read your Bible and stand up to the nobility once again. Yes?”
    She looked into his gray eyes. “Who are you?” she whispered. “Not . . . not the marquess. He has eyes of cold, hard iron. Yours are soft, kind.”
    “You may call me Ruel.”
    “I must tell you . . . Ruel . . . were I to paint your eyes, I should make them the color of a dove’s wings.”
    He clenched his jaw, fighting the emotion that welled in his chest. “Thank you, madam.”
    “I could make your eyes in lace, I think. I am good with patterns . . . and your hair is all curls . . . like mist on the window. . . . You look very like the marquess, but much more gentle. I must tell you, Ruel . . . I think the marquess was wounded. I saw blood on his shoulder . . . like that on yours.”
    “I shall look after him, I