Free My Lady Gambled by Shirl Anders Page A

for England, now set up as a leisurely lawyer in Paris. Brynmore made sure his instructions to the livery boy were clear. He was to deliver the message to Mr. Barcliff and tell Mr. Barcliff to find the woman whose name was on the outside of the missive and deliver it to her. This was of the utmost importance.
    Brynmore decided not to long after, while he galloped his hastily purchased stallion down the Paris streets, that what he had succumbed to with the note and inclination, were both bloody good reasons never to involve women in any mission! They distracted a man’s mind, his timing, and his direction. They caused worry, when a man needed full and sharp attention.
    “I’m bloody well glad that Drummond and the others are standing firm against their women being involved with this,” Brynmore muttered, as he urged the stallion to further speed, with the wind sharpening and knifing through his clothes.

Chapter Ten
    “You are the whore who married a duke,” Nia muttered to herself, tracing her long pink-painted fingernail absently on the glass top of the table she sat beside. She was “taking the sun” amongst the flowering gardens behind her ducal residence in London, supposedly, a noble recreation for a duchess.
    It really should not bother her. Everyone—well, at least Radford’s close friends—treated her like one of their own. However, some of Radford’s stuffy family had pinched noses about her pedigree, or lack of. But, they were that way all the time, Radford would tease her. Radford, the rogue, the man of his own making, beside being bred a duke. He walked his own way and cared little what noble acquaintances thought.
    “My family is well-taken care of too,” Nia muttered. Her younger brothers and sisters loved Radford as if he were their uncle. They were here with them more times than not. Radford never bemoaned the care it had taken to continue raising them. Instead, he had embraced it with efficiency, the right amount of sternness, and large amounts of true affection.
    I am, Nia thought, living in the perfect bonny fantasy. Radford was her prince come to save her. She was the somewhat tarnished princess, saved and redeemed by love. “He does love me!” Nia argued, gazing out at the sun-dappled roses. “I’m just not sure that he likes me.”
    She thought she had evidence too. Radford would never say that he loved her, and then just stop loving her. However, he had never said anything about liking her, and the way they had met and fallen in love was so chaotic. It wasn’t as if they had spent great amounts of time discovering what they had in common.
    “Hmm, let’s see, what common interests could a tart and a duke have?” Nia exclaimed, slouching back irritably in her chair. Not that she had been a practicing lady of the night for years. “Blimey, it was only weeks,” Nia paused, “But, I was good at it!”
    It seemed that sex, was the only thing she and Radford had in common, earth shattering ground shaking sex. But, it was not enough and that is why Radford was so quiet lately. He actually brooded now, and he had never done that before. Now, he barricaded himself in his study for long hours in the evening, where before they would spend their evenings together. Radford never came to bed anymore unless he thought she would be asleep.
    “In fact, we never make love, but in the deep of the night,” Nia muttered with the realization. They only made love now when Radford woke her early in the morning, then he always left before they really talked. “It is because he has discovered he has nothing to say to you,” Nia mumbled.
    Had the class distinctions finally settled in, she wondered? What else could she expect? She had been a professed tart, and they were good for sex, but not for talk. Nia wiped a small tear from her eye, blinking into the sunlight. Blimey! She was not reduced to crying? Was she? Hard-nosed Nia O’Shea from the best Irish stock—weeping!
    “Och,” she exclaimed.