Free Miss Molly Robbins Designs a Seduction by Jayne Fresina

jaunty green bonnet and matching coat. Today she had shaken off the guise of a servant. Cheerful spring sun, beaming through the tall window, cast her in a far better light than the gloomy, rain-patterned shadows of their meeting in his library.
    Everything improved in sunlight, he supposed, searching for a reason why she should cause his pulse to quicken, his hands to lose their grip on his riding crop so suddenly. That warm shade of her emerald coat and the hint of verdigris lace inside her bonnet made her small face glow today.
    “Miss Robbins.” He set his gloves over the seat of a nearby chair before she made him drop those too.
    “Your lordship.” He caught her glance at his muddied knees, and then saw her lips squeeze together in that familiar way, while her impertinent right brow rose half an inch. She never missed a chance to look at him with scorn. The burden of carrying that halo around must make her head hurt.
    Carver straightened his shoulders and snapped, “To what do I owe this dubious honor? Are you allowed on this side of Town, Miss Robbins? It seems a trifle unfair, if I am not allowed on yours.”
    Her response was crisp, no-nonsense, ignoring his comment. “As promised, I have brought the first payment in person.”
    She could have left it with Richards, but apparently it was important to her that she put it directly into his hands. Since he did not reach for the notes in her hand, the Mouse finally placed them reverently on a small table by the window. She looked at his knees again, wayward sparks finding their way out from under her lowered lashes.
    “Did you suffer a fall, your lordship? I hope you did not hurt yourself.”
    Carver scowled at her. He still hadn’t forgiven this woman for leaving his household and forcing him to seek her out on the other side of Town, just for a glimpse of her damnably doubting face. “No,” he snapped. “I was not hurt.” The Baroness Schofield always provided an adequately soft landing.
    “Those breeches should be tended to at once with white vinegar to remove the grass stain.”
    He wondered why the state of his breeches should concern her, since she was no longer his employee and clearly relished the fact. Bloody woman. “My valet will see to the matter.”
    Her gaze lifted to his, brown eyes apparently saved from the sun’s glare by the peak of her bonnet. “I shall return the rest of the loan to you in due course. As stated in the agreement.”
    “Hmm.” In truth, he could not remember much about that agreement. Except for one clause and the annoying Mr. Tom Follerie. She stood before him in a streak of sunlight, waiting for something, hovering on the tips of her toes. Any minute now she would turn and walk for the door. Who knew when he might see that frowning face again? He thought desperately for some way to delay her exit. “You recovered from your cold, Miss Robbins.”
    “Oh yes, your lordship. My landlady, Mrs. Lotterby, makes an exceedingly beneficial chicken broth. She looks after me very well.”
    Perhaps the landlady’s broth was responsible for putting more color in her face and that extra curl in her hair. Margaret “Molly” Robbins bloomed with the spring, he concluded. “Business is going well, it seems,” he muttered gruffly.
    “Indeed, your lordship.” Her face very solemn, she curtsied again and moved toward the door. Suddenly, she stopped and turned to him. “It was not necessary to involve your mistress, the Baroness Schofield. I am capable of finding my own clients.”
    “What makes you assume—”
    “Do please credit me with some sense, your lordship. I may be a country wretch, raised by simple folk rather than among the grand sophisticates of Town, such as yourself”—she appeared to bite down on a chuckle, while her eyes once again studied his dirty knees—“but I am not naive. I have also borne witness to your high jinks for half my life.”
    He should have been angered by that remark, but something about