Free A Difficult Disguise by Kasey Michaels Page A

searched for the doors to their rooms.
    At last Fletcher stopped in front of a substantial-looking closed door and twisted the knob. He opened the door and took two steps inside, Billy directly behind him, eager to be rid of her bundles, before a loud male bellow from inside the room stopped them both in their tracks.
    “What in bloody blazes! Who is that? How dare you come barging in here without so much as a by-your-leave?”
    Billy peeked out from behind Fletcher’s back to see—thanks to the light of a single candle burning beside the bed—the faint outline of a very large, nearly naked man who seemed to be hovering overtop a much smaller, bare-shouldered female figure. Although she had never before been privy to precisely what went on between a man and a woman in the privacy of their bedroom, she had a very good suspicion as to what Fletcher had interrupted—and whom he had interrupted in the act of engaging in it!
    “Beatrice.” Billy breathed the name softly, recognizing the barmaid’s blond hair. Now this was sticky. It was one thing for Fletcher to dismiss Beatrice because the woman had become ill, or had belatedly discovered she had morals and had decided to dedicate her life to chaste poverty while serving lepers in far-off Africa or some such tripe, but it was something entirely different to see that the idiotic woman had rejected him for such an obviously inferior, bloated specimen as the man now burrowing beneath the covers.
    Billy’s apprehensive gaze flew to Fletcher’s face. She wondered how long it would be before he exploded in wrath, but her employer appeared to be most infuriatingly calm, if not even amused.
    Fletcher had immediately upon entering the room recognized the man in the bed to be none other than one James Something-or-other Whittington. Whittington was a thoroughly unlovely man whose major—nay, sole—claim to fame was that he was second cousin thrice removed to the beleaguered Lady Helen Whittington, who was forced by conscience to invite him to at least one small party a Season.
    Although his lapse was not deliberate, Fletcher did not at once share this information with his groom, who was still more than mildly concerned that things could get nasty.
    In fact, so intrigued was Belden to see the very much married man en flagrant délit that he totally forgot his groom for a moment, and only belatedly whispered a quick order for Billy, who had noisily dropped the baggage to the floor in shock, to gather their belongings and remove them and his too-young, innocent eyes from the room.
    “A thousand pardons, sir. Please accept my apologies,” Fletcher said to Whittington, not retreating a step. Beatrice struggled to cover herself, but the fat man, who had fleetingly reminded Billy of a newly shorn sheep, had fallen onto his back, selfishly pulling the majority of the sheets along with him.
    “You offer your apologies, sirrah?” Whittington bellowed once he had found his voice. “I cannot settle for your apologies. I will not settle for your apologies! I demand satisfaction. Do you hear me?”
    Clearly, Fletcher thought, although I recognize Whittington, he is incapable of seeing through the darkness to detect my identity, for, if memory served him correctly, the athletically inept Whittington could not with any certainty be counted upon to maim a wingless fly with fifty blows from a hammer.
    “You demand satisfaction?” Fletcher responded, calmly removing Billy’s clutching hands from his sleeve and winking his groom a silent warning. “My goodness. My knees are knocking together at the thought. Do you hear the bones, sir? They’re positively rattling.”
    “And so they should be,” Whittington blustered. “But be you coward or coxcomb, I demand satisfaction. It is a matter of honor.”
    “Ah, yes,” Fletcher said, nodding. “You are a man of honor, then? But I must ask, are you also a man of moderation? Although I know I have committed a truly reprehensible solecism,