Free The Runner's Enticement (Men of Circumstance Book 2) by Addie Jo Ryleigh Page A

to do anything other than to sit and watch, Mr. Frederickson?” she quietly inquired, keeping her focus on the papers before her.
    “Ahh, but with such an enticing subject matter, who wouldn’t choose to merely observe? And it is Nate.” He couldn’t have stopped the sweet retort if he’d wanted to. His forwardness was rewarded when the faint blush rose in her cheeks.
    A few minutes passed while she must have debated if she would satisfy him with a reply. To his delight her inner pluckiness won out.
    “I’m hardly a simpleton. False flattery means nothing to me . . . Nate.”
    As much as she might have intended his name as a taunt, the four letters slipped past her lips with such delicate utterance, he almost lost his footing in their verbal skirmish.
    “What makes you believe it is false?”
    She abandoned her work and glanced at him. The touch of flame hidden in her hair contrasted with the calm of her gaze. “As you’ve been disinclined to be anything beyond civil to me since your arrival, I’d be a fool to succumb to it now.”
    Her assessment was mark on, so he didn’t attempt to mount a defense. Better to change the subject.
    “You seem remarkably sane after dealing with the petty troubles of so many young ladies.”
    “I’m going to ignore the implication that because they are young ladies, their troubles are petty.” She attempted to cover the hint of a smile. “Especially since I would be lying if I didn’t agree. More times than not their problems are, at the most, trivial. In their defense, at their age everything is the end of the world. There have been plenty of times when I’ve wanted to send them from my office to fend for themselves.”
    When she spoke of her students, even in terms of their bickering, she became animated in a way he’d never seen from a lady of consequence. Which enhanced her subtle loveliness no one else seemed to notice.
    “Why continue to do it?”
    Her hands paused over the papers and with complete certainty she answered, “Because it is what my mother would have done if she were here.”
    With one sentence, Nate suddenly understood more about Lady Annabel than he’d learned in the last several days.
    “My mother never had the opportunity to make the school into what she might have wanted. Yet there is no doubt in my mind she would have done everything possible to give these young ladies an education that would take them further than classes in etiquette and deportment. As well as personally help them through whatever problems arose, trifling or not.”
    “It must have been hard to lose her.”
    She returned to righting the papers on her desk. Feeling foolish atop his stool in the corner, he abandoned it for an equally uncomfortable chair before her desk. He suspected the less-than-inviting seating served as further chastisement for disobedient students who had the misfortune of needing Lady Annabel’s direction. Her tactic had to be admired. What better way to keep the young girls on edge than an unforgiving chair?
    Maybe Lawson should look at hiring Lady Annabel. The agency could always use more agents specializing in interrogations.
    Past the point of trying to find an agreeable angle to place his body, he turned his attention to Lady Annabel, still organizing her desk, which wasn’t cluttered to begin with.
    “I miss her every day,” she abruptly whispered.
    Trained to get information from people, he knew when to keep silent. Instead, he focused on the darkness of her lashes shuttering her eyes as her head remained lowered.
    “Papa has done the best he knows, and I love him all the more for it, but I feel like something is missing. Only when I’m at the school do I feel close to her.”
    She settled the last of the papers and rather than start a new task, she met his steady gaze. “She never had the opportunity to run the school but the faint memories I have of her include bringing me along as she assisted with instructing classes. Being a child of