Read Trenton Lord of Loss (Lonely Lords) for Free Online

thoughts? 
    He cast his mental hounds, and other words came to mind, bold, articulate terms like asinine, fatuous, and puerile , words a man could toss out with some heat and substance behind them. He started to put all three in a sentence and searched for an appropriately colorful verb to hitch up to them when he realized his companion had fallen silent. 
    Some time ago. 
    Shite. “I beg your pardon, my lady.” 
    “For?” 
    Trent kept his eyes forward. “My conversation has deserted me, which would be no great loss, except I’ve put yours to flight as well.” 
    “I’m listening to the exchange between your wanton flowers.”
    Wanton was a fine old word. “What are they saying?” 
    “The irises are complaining their slippers are too tight,” Lady Rammel informed him. “While the roses need a good hair combing but are planning to parade some splendid finery in a few weeks, nonetheless. The Holland bulbs are tired of dancing and ready for a supper break. The daffodils wish everybody else would hush so one could get some rest.” 
    “Are all my flowers female?” 
    “Lilacs have woody stems, and they grow quite vigorously, so I think of them as masculine.” 
    Woody…old words, vulgar ones, tripped through Trent’s head, and it now became imperative that he keep his eyes front. 
    “May we sit a moment here?” Lady Rammel dropped his arm and settled on a shaded bench, the same one Trent had occupied with his stable master. “This had to have been your scent garden, and it’s worth lingering over.” 
    Trent settled in beside her, happy to note he hadn’t needed the respite—not quite yet.
    His companion was quiet, apparently content to inhale the effects of a scent garden growing riot on a summer morning. Beside her, Trent’s bad mood had eloped with his conversation, leaving him acutely sensitive to the pleasure of simply sitting beside a pretty woman in the morning air. She wore lavender well for a lady of her coloring, and she hadn’t minced along beside him as if her full corset were torturing her bones. 
    He endured the most peculiar impulse to take her hand. 
    Lady Rammel closed her eyes and tipped her head back. “Andy wanted to come with me this morning. Her situation can be difficult.” 
    “Difficult?” Trent sorted through the implications, while noting that Lady Rammel had long eyelashes. “She’s an only child?” 
    “She’s an illegitimate child,” Lady Rammel replied, her tone mild, even weary. “One wants to protect her from unnecessary distress, but not overprotect.” 
    The urge to take the woman’s hand persisted. She had freckles over her knuckles, suggesting she didn’t always wear gloves when she gardened. “You are wondering if I would censure you or the child, should you presume to allow her to accompany us through my gardens.” 
    “Something like that.” She opened her eyes and studied a tuft of silvery green lavender flourishing before some tall plants Trent didn’t know the name of. “Would you censure me for bringing her?” 
    Of course not, but what was Lady Rammel really asking? A man who hadn’t spent a long year clutching the brandy decanter would have puzzled out the subtleties easily. 
    “You wonder about the girl’s welcome, because her father is no longer around to insist she be treated civilly?”
    “Yes, though her father is no longer around to gainsay my decisions, either,” Lady Rammel countered, the first hint of steel threading her tone.
    Trent regarded the pretty lady beside him and permitted himself a flash of ire at idiot spouses who left children half-orphaned, particularly for something as foolish as a drunken steeplechase. 
    Though he’d left his own children more than half-orphaned for the dubious company of the brandy decanter, hadn’t he? 
    “Miss Coriander is welcome at Crossbridge.” Trent rose and offered Lady Rammel his hand. “I’ve a pony she might put to use, come to that. The poor beast hasn’t