Read Storm for Free Online

have not," she said, anxiously gripping her teacup.
    "What about references? You must have some."
    "I'm afraid not."
    "None at all?" Deverell exclaimed, emerging from the other room, still in the process of tugging the clean shirt over his shoulders and exposing a tanned slab of naked torso at the same time. "But you can cook?"
    She averted her gaze at once, her heartbeat suddenly leaping up into her throat, making it very difficult to swallow. "Yes. No." Oh, what was she saying? "I'm an abysmal cook... but not for want of trying."
    "I see. What about sewing?"
    "Not a stitch." In London, Bert Soames kept a seamstress who made all 'Kitty Blue's' clothes— or altered them from second and third-hand garments, which Kate often suspected had been taken from corpses at the morgue. She'd had more than a few gowns that looked as if they were once trampled under carriage wheels and horse's hooves, or dragged up out of the river. As for Flynn's shirts, their landlady had sewn those whenever he needed a new one.
    "What about laundry?"
    "I'm sure I can learn."
    "Lighting fires? Cleaning windows?"
    Still avoiding his gaze, she tucked that persistent stray curl back under her bonnet brim again. "How hard can it be?" How did she explain that when one lived a nocturnal life, clean windows were unimportant? And fires were for the wealthy who could afford coal— unless they scrambled for it in the Thames where it sometimes fell from barges.
    There followed another short silence and then he said, "At least you've got a pretty face. We seldom see the like of you in these parts."
    She gripped her cup of tea in both hands and took a hearty gulp.
    Don't look up. Don't look...Oh, has he got the damnable shirt on yet?
    Then he added, "Those lips alone might be worth the twenty-five pounds a year salary I promised."
    Alas, she had to look. What else was a woman supposed to do when a man said such a thing to her? And in front of her son too. Had he no propriety?
    Not that Flynn was listening. A quick glance reassured her that the boy was too busy eating bacon and playing with the man's dog.
    Her new employer tipped his head to one side, hands paused in the motion of tucking the shirt into his well-worn riding breeches. "Did I speak amiss? You look all...peevish."
    "Sir, it is not the sort of comment one should make to one's housekeeper."
    He shrugged, only drawing her attention to his wide shoulders again. "You'll have to forgive me, if I'm too straightforward. I'm a country fellow, Duchess. I don't complicate matters. I tend to say what I think, as soon as the thought comes to me."
    "I'm sure that causes you many trials and tribulations then."
    "Once in a while," he admitted frankly, with a quick grin. "Mostly I manage to avoid trouble."
    "Yes. Men generally do. After they've caused it."
    He laughed. "Back to that again, are we?"
    "I beg your pardon?"
    "The inadequacies of men and how we are to blame for all the world's problems. And all because I was honest and said you were bonny, when I might have kept it to myself?"
    "I wish you had kept it to yourself," she muttered.
    "Can't you take a compliment, Mrs. Kelly?"
    "We have scarce been introduced, sir." He had better not think she was that sort of woman. "I wonder what you could mean by it." Kate had been told she was fair of face before, but no good ever came from it, and the men who tried to flatter her had only one intent. If anything, her face was a disadvantage when she sought to make an honest living.
    "I meant no harm by speaking the thought aloud, but don't fret." He held up his hands in mock surrender. "I shan't worry you with another, now that I know you're not of a mind to receive any graciously." He said all this in a calm voice, more amused than angry. His eyes narrowed, crinkling at the corners, which explained the thin white lines in his sun-browned face. He must puzzle over a lot of riddles, she thought. "But 'tis a pity if you can't appreciate your own good looks," he added. "I know