Read Stealing the Bride for Free Online

situation. “Oh, do shut up, Temple. You of all people should be as upset about this as Lamden.”
    Temple’s gaze cast upward and he shook his head. Not again.
    “What’s all this about?” Pymm asked.
    Before Colin could explain, Temple jumped in. “My brine-soaked cousin here is of the opinion that the lady holds some secret tendre for me, and I for her.” He shot Colin a withering glance. “Which I do not.”
    Colin snorted, but said nothing further.
    “ Tendre or not,” Pymm said, “what is of importance here is that the lady be returned to London posthaste. Or if it can be arranged, given over to Nettlestone or Penham so she can be married. Immediately.”
    Temple tapped the side of his head. “Did I hear you correctly, Pymm? You advocating marriage? Why, the world must be coming to an end.” He laughed loud and hard.
    His superior was not amused. “Stifle it, Templeton. You’re in deep enough as it is. Best not add to your problems by casting your ill-timed humor on the situation.” Thus said, Pymm sat up straight in his seat. “I’ll remind you that the Lamden earldom was loyally serving this country long before your orange-selling ancestress started her ignoble rise into the peerage.”
    Temple had the audacity to smirk. He was one of few members of his family who found it highly amusing that the family’s elevation was the result of a saucy redheaded chit who’d got her start selling a variety of wares to London’s groundlings, before by chance she caught Charles Stuart’s roving eye.
    His eye and other things…
    Yet Pymm was right. The Lamden lineage was royal in far more impressive ways and with far more noble service than the descendants of some upstart, enterprising little wench from Dover. And the current earl was no exception to his family’s illustrious past.
    Lamden did deserve a hefty measure of respect, and his daughter the same consideration. Even if she was a bit of an eccentric and slightly long in the tooth.
    Yet despite his own convictions that the lady could very well take care of herself, no small measure of guilt tugged at Temple’s heart. He told himself it was simply a matter of honor, for King and country, a feeling he would have had over any honorable lady led astray.
    Certainly not for the reasons Colin continued to put forth.
    That Diana cared for him. An unlikely tale. Not after…Temple shook away the memory. No, there was no doubt in his mind she despised him. Why, the spiteful little minx’s carriage had nearly run him down in Mayfair not a fortnight earlier. Oh, she’d apologized profusely and very prettily for her driver’s wayward course, then sighed just so, that really she didn’t see any need for a fuss since he was merely grazed and not truly run over.
    No, Lady Diana did not carry any devoted regard for him. Not in the least.
    As for him, carrying a tendre for her? Indeed! He’d as soon take Elton’s toothless mother to bride.
    “So what would you have me do, Pymm?” Temple asked. “Fetch Diana home for you?” He laughed at such a notion. He who had slipped in and out of Paris prisons, had infiltrated Napoleon’s court. As if he even had the time. He knew full well he was about to be sent on a mission to the Ottoman Empire, a posting he’d been nagging and plaguing Pymm to secure for him for years.
    Pymm removed his spectacles and wiped them with what once might have been a white handkerchief. “Actually, that is exactly what I want you to do,” he said as he put his eyeglasses back on. “And not just me. This comes directly from the Secretary.”
    Temple’s smug levity deflated. “You can’t be serious. You said not a fortnight ago to keep a bag at the ready, for I was going to Constantinople.”
    “Your assignment to the Ottoman Empire is being delayed.”
    “Delayed? Because some chit had the effrontery, and dare I say it, poor judgment to run off with the likes of Cordell? Why, just last week you were ranting and complaining about