Free A Duke to Remember (A Season for Scandal Book 2) by Kelly Bowen

like. And the seasons in between. “No.”
    “Well,” she said, flapping her arms in an apparent effort to dry herself faster, “you’re not missing much.”
    Noah watched her out of the corner of his eye. The thought struck him that, in his billowing shirt, she looked like an oversize stork trying to take flight, and he suddenly found himself smiling, the ugly memories receding as quickly as they had surged.
    “You’re laughing at me again,” she commented wryly.
    “Yes.”
    “At least you’re honest, Mr. Lawson.”
    His smile slipped. He wasn’t honest about anything. He hadn’t been honest about anything in well over a decade. And he found himself wishing he could be. Just for one moment, he wanted to tell this woman something about himself that was true. “I mix up my words,” he said suddenly. There. He was honest about that.
    Her flapping stopped, and she peered at him, a faint crease in her forehead. “So?”
    “So?” he repeated.
    She turned her palms up. “So?”
    Noah wasn’t sure what to say. Absent were the pity and the suspicion and the distaste he usually encountered when others became aware of his difficulty. “Does that not bother you?”
    “I can’t sing,” she mused.
    “You can’t sing?” He was confused. What did that have to do with—
    “Does that not bother you?”
    He blinked at her. “What?”
    “I can’t tolerate being restrained, but you know that already. I cannot abide rats, and when I’m angry, I tend to curse. Very offensively, I might add. In French.”
    Noah was aware his jaw had slackened.
    “Anything else?” Elise was wrestling with her thick hair now, trying valiantly to twist it back into a braid.
    “What?” Well, if she hadn’t thought him a half-wit before, she would now.
    She gave up on her hair with a sigh. “I thought we were comparing our shortcomings. Or at least our shortcomings as others may view them.”
    “Um.”
    “Do you want me to think of some more?” She cocked her head and started counting on her fingers. “I’m not a proper lady, but that is probably obvious since I’m wearing trousers. I don’t let anyone handle my rifle—”
    “Your rifle ?” Noah wasn’t sure where and when this conversation had gone so completely sideways. “You have a rifle?”
    She gave him a strange look. “It’s strapped to my horse. It’s not exactly small. I would have thought you’d have noticed it.”
    “Why do you have a rifle?”
    “I would expect for the reason most people have a rifle,” she answered, not answering him at all.
    Noah remembered the long bundle wrapped in oiled cloth. “I thought that was tent poles. Or something.” In truth he hadn’t thought much about the contents at all.
    “Tent poles.” She chuckled. “You’re very funny, Mr. Lawson.” She shook her head and considered the next finger on the hand that she was counting on. “Now let’s see. I’ve been told I sometimes snore when I sleep—”
    “Stop,” Noah managed. “This is not what I intended at all.” He’d not intended this comparison of supposed failings, this absurd discussion of things that were irrelevant. These…shortcomings she seemed to think she had were not shortcomings. They were things that made her one of the most intriguing people he had ever met.
    Elise met his eyes. “I don’t really care that you can’t find the right words all the time, Mr. Lawson. But I will care if you touch my rifle without asking.”
    A bubble of something unfamiliar was rising in his chest, compressing and squeezing his heart. Something that was flooding through his veins, something reckless and wild that made him want to abandon all caution. It was all he could do not to touch her. Not to bury his hands in her mud-streaked curls and kiss her senseless. He had never met anyone like her. He was terrified that he never would again. “Fair enough,” he managed.
    “Glad we got that out of the way.” She leaned back, wincing as the cart hit a hole in the