Free The Care and Taming of a Rogue by Suzanne Enoch

chits on the outside were anything but that on the inside.
    “—for a discussion of your own discoveries in the Congo?” Lady Olivia was saying, and he shook himself. Social . He was supposed to be social, make a fair impression, until he could wrap his hands around Langley’s throat.
    “Oh, that would be magnificent! I do love Captain Langley’s other stories.”
    “Say you will, Sir Bennett!”
    “I’ll talk to Papa,” Phillipa’s older sister went on as he attempted to decipher the conversation, “and he’ll have to agree. We’ll arrange for a dinner, and then you could entertain us with your own tales of grand adventure.”
    Phillipa lifted her head again at the discussion, and he caught the flare of excitement in her earth-colored eyes before someone else cut between them. “I’d be happy to,” he heard himself say.
    “Oh, I want to hear you tell the story about when you and Captain Langley encountered that quaint tribe on the river. The one who gave you the canoes,” the prominent-chested Sonja Depris suggested.
    Bennett frowned. He’d read Langley’s watered-down tripe about that incident. The Nbule had “given” them the canoes only after they’d attempted to slaughter the entire expedition and steal their supplies. He remembered it as a night of blood and fire and screaming. It had not been quaint, and his journal had not described it that way. Perhaps Langley thought that if he stole only every other sentence of a man’s work, he could claim the results as his own.
    As the rest of the group began offering suggestions of the stories they wanted to hear, movement halfway around the edge of the glade caught his attention. A group of children and a harried-looking woman, more than likely their governess, danced about and pointed excitedly at a nearby tree. A quick look told him that Kero had gone exploring. Thank God . An excuse to escape.
    He inclined his head in the general direction of the largest number of picnic-goers. “Excuse me.” Taking several strides toward the monkey, he slowed as he caught the desperate look on Phillipa’s face. She seemed to hate being there as much as he did. “Lady Phillipa,” he said, turning around, “Kero seems to like you. Come with me, will you?” He returned to her side and held down his hand to her.
    When she set aside her book and reached up to grip his fingers, warmth slid up his muscles in a pleasant, unexpected jolt. He most decidedly liked touching this woman. He wanted to touch her more intimately.
    “Should we help?” the Sonja chit chirped.
    “You should not,” he returned, only half paying attention to the rest of them as he helped Phillipa to her feet. The top of her head just reached his chin as they stood in the grass. He hadn’t realized that the other night. Today it seemed oddly significant.
    “But why does Flip get to—”
    “I doubt Captain Wolfe wants everyone chasing after Kero,” Phillipa said, interrupting the Sonja chit before he could state that Phillipa was allowed to accompany him because she was the only female he found tolerable in the entire crowd. “She more than likely doesn’t even understand English. We’ll be back in a moment.”
    When he caught sight of Jack scowling at him, Bennett realized he still held her fingers. Belatedly he let her go. “She understands English and Swahili—when she wants to,” he said, moving off with Phillipa falling in beside him. “Which is generally when food is about.”
    “If she understands English then I can see why she wanted to escape the picnic and all that chattering,” she returned with an amused chuckle.
    “I like the way you laugh,” he stated. “Even if I was in the middle of the chattering.”
    Her fair cheeks darkened. “Oh. I didn’t mean your chattering. That is to say, you weren’t—I mean, I found your conversation very interesting. The—”
    He grinned. “They sounded like a troupe of damned baboons.”
    Phillipa snorted. Immediately she