Read By Love Undone for Free Online Page B

interesting.
    Aristotle reached the edge of the water. Feeling the ground give beneath his hooves, the bay balked and scrambled sideways to regain his footing. The marquis,his attention on the swerving pig in front of him, never saw it coming. With a startled yelp he went over the hunter’s head, and, reins and hat flying, landed with a resounding splash in the stream.
    “Damnation!”
    The marquis swarmed to his feet, water cascading off his fine rust riding coat and filling his beautiful Hessian boots. Even with the spring melt, the water rose only as high as his hips, which she supposed was fortunate since he’d gone in head first. As he swept his wet blond hair out of his eyes, he issued several very colorful curses under his breath, which the morning breeze carried to Maddie’s ears. They were quite imaginative, and he actually rose a notch or two in her estimation.
    She took a deep breath, trying to stifle the laughter welling in her throat. “Oh, no, my lord! Are you un-hurt?” she asked belatedly, coaxing Blossom closer to the stream.
    He spun around to glare at her. “Yes. Quite.”
    “How dreadful! I cannot imagine…Is the water very cold?”
    “Yes.” Slowly he turned in a circle, then glowered up at her again. “Frightfully. Where is my hat?”
    “I believe I saw it…floating downstream, my lord.” A chuckle erupted from her chest, and she quickly covered it with a cough. “Do you wish me to fetch assistance, my lord?”
    “Absolutely not.”
    He eyed her blank face suspiciously, then shook water from his honey-colored hair and waded toward the bank. In the slippery mud he lost his footing and nearly went down again, and Maddie swiftly turned away, biting her lip to keep from laughing aloud.
    “I shall fetch Aristotle for you, my lord,” she said, and wheeled Blossom toward the stand of tall grasswhere the bay stood looking embarrassed by the whole affair.
    As soon as Miss Willits turned away to fetch his blasted horse, Quin scrambled ungracefully through the slick mud and made his way back up onto the stream bank. Water and mud squished coldly in his boots, and he sloshed over to a clear, sunny spot of field and sat down to pull them off.
    The deuced pig was out of sight, but Miss Willits seemed to know where the beast was going. He’d be damned if he’d let Miss Marguerite escape after this. In fact, he fully intended to dine on ham for luncheon. He dumped the first boot out and put it aside while he yanked off the second. Maddie approached with the horses behind him, cutting off any further cursing. “My thanks, Miss—”
    “Oh, my goodness!”
    At her shocked exclamation he froze. Miss Willits had clearly viewed his tumble into the stream with no anxiety and a great deal of amusement, and he couldn’t believe that the removal of his boots would overset her. He turned his head.
    Beside Maddie, with nearly identical expressions of astonishment on their pale faces, two young women, a brunette and a blonde, sat upon a pair of chestnut mares. Maddie’s intelligent gray eyes gazed at him steadily for a moment, something very much like amused triumph, and very little like shocked dismay, in her gaze.
    Quin had already begun to regard Miss Willits with some suspicion. Now, as her lips trembled with the effort of not breaking into out-and-out laughter, he was nearly ready to think her capable of actual sabotage.
    Abruptly she blinked and straightened. “Oh, pray forgive my momentary upset, my lord. I had no idea you were en déshabille . May I introduce the Misses Lydiaand Sally Fowler? Lydia, Sally, the Marquis of Warefield.”
    Quin shook more water out of his hair and swiftly climbed to his feet. “Ladies,” he intoned, feeling completely ridiculous standing there in his stockings and with a sodden boot hanging from one hand, and even more distracted by the discovery that his uncle’s companion spoke French. “Charmed.”
    “My…lord,” the brunette returned, blushing bright red and