Free A Winter Scandal by Candace Camp Page B

stopped him for a moment as years of training made him hang the cloak on the stand by the door, but then he scurried after her, saying, “Miss … no, miss.”
    Thea ignored the footman as she strode up to the half-closed double doors. Thea stopped abruptly, staring at the scene before her. The large room had obviously once been the great hall of the medieval house. The long rectangle had a vaulted ceiling of heavy, blackened wood beams. A vast fireplace stood at one end of the room. The room was largely empty of furniture, containing only a long table and chairs, as well as a sideboard at the opposite end and a few chairs against the walls. The scarcity of furniture left a lot of empty stone floor, and two men were now moving up and down that emptiness, facing each other and wielding fireplace utensils like swords. Lord Morecombe advanced rapidly on the other man, whom Thea recalled was named Sir Myles something-or-other. Morecombe’s fireplace shovel parried and thrust against the poker the other man used.
    The men had taken off their jackets and thrown them across the table, along with their brightly colored waistcoats. Their faces were flushed, and their boots resounded on the floor as they darted back and forth, the metal instruments clanking and scraping against each other. A third man, Morecombe’s other companion at the party, sat in a chair near the sideboard, a large tankard in his hand, cheering the others on. Two more tankards and a punch bowl stood on the sideboard.
    “Miss … miss!” The footman came up behind Thea, hissing and wringing his hands. “You mustn’t go in there. It isn’t proper!”
    Thea whirled on him, fixing him with a fiery look that stopped his speech immediately. She turned back and shoved on one of the half-open doors. It slammed into the wall with a satisfying crash that brought all movement in the room to an immediate halt. The baby in her arms made a little hiccup of sound and went very still, his hands curled tightly in the front of her dress. All three men swung around to face her. She could not see clearly enough to gauge their expressions, but she suspected with a sense of satisfaction that astonishment was on their features.
    “Who the devil are you?” Morecombe asked. He tossed his little shovel carelessly onto the table and came closer to her.
    As he came into focus, Thea realized, with a little skip of her pulse, how intensely masculine he was without his jacket, his lawn shirt damp with sweat and sticking to his chest, the sleeves rolled up almost to his elbows. His black hair was mussed from the strenuous activity as well, and it flopped down across his forehead, thick and shining. That she noticed these things—and that they made her breathe a little faster—simply fueled her irritation. This was precisely the sort of reaction this man caused, and that was why some poor woman had gotten into trouble.
    “Well?” he asked when Thea did not immediately answer. “What are you doing here?”
    “I am here about this child.” Thea’s anger shot the words out of her like bullets, sharp and fierce. “ Your child. And your duty to him.”
    One of Gabriel’s eyebrows rose quizzically, and he ran his gaze down her in a slow, obvious way, rudely taking in every bit of her from the top of her head to the tip of her toes.
    “ My child?” he drawled, his voice thick with amusement. “My dear girl, I have been drinking, I admit, but I am not that befuddled. I am quite certain that I have never lain with you. I would remember it if I had.”
    Thea’s cheeks flooded with red as she realized two humiliating things. The first was that he had, once again, entirely forgotten her. He not only had not remembered their kiss ten years ago, he did not recall meeting her just the other evening at the Squire’s ball. She was that forgettable! He was that arrogant!
    The second, equally embarrassing realization was that Lord Morecombe thought that the baby was hers, that she was