Читать книгу Daisy and the Duke - Джанис Мейнард, Janice Maynard - Страница 5

Chapter Two

Daisy was tired, hungry and cranky. The flight from Charlottesville to Atlanta to Gatwick to Manchester had been interminable. And the subsequent bus ride even more so. The prospect of her first hop across the pond had excited her, but now that she was here, she barely had the energy to be civil. Perhaps she should have built a day into her schedule to recover from the jet lag.

The subject of her current displeasure was well over six feet tall and had the hard, muscular frame of a man in his prime. He was wickedly handsome, with tousled chestnut hair and long-lashed hazel eyes. She couldn’t, however, afford to be distracted, even if his blatant masculinity and clipped speech made her knees wobble.

She almost never made snap decisions about people, but this boorish farm laborer set her teeth on edge. He was being either deliberately obtuse or obstructive—or both.

Drawing on her last ounce of determination, she smiled at him with the cajoling humor that usually stood her in good stead. “Surely you could escort me to the castle…introduce me to His Grace?”

The man narrowed his eyes, suspicion in his gaze. “Common laborers don’t, as a rule, walk up to the front door and let themselves in.”

“Then perhaps we could access the house unobtrusively somewhere else. All I need to see, at least at first, is the library. And I won’t say you helped me. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know your name, do I? Plausible deniability will work in our favor.”

“You Americans are so pushy.”

She felt her cheeks flush. The man spoke in educated accents. But he was dressed in threadbare tobacco-colored trousers and a weathered leather bomber jacket that looked as if it might have actually been worn during a world war.

Perhaps his family hadn’t had the means to send him to university. It was a shame, because he had a natural air of command that would have carried him far in business. It was possible he was an overseer for the duke, in charge of the property. But that still didn’t explain why he was mucking about in a hog pen.

She refused to let his comment dissuade her from her quest. “I like to think of it as being goal-oriented. Or are you a chauvinist who believes women belong in the bedroom and the kitchen, and nowhere near the boardroom?”

“I’m sure you could handle all three.” His voice was smooth as whiskey, and he smiled for the first time as he spoke, a quick, flashing grin that stole her breath. The men Daisy usually dated were intellectuals, professors and the like. She had never been attracted to the earthy, works-with-his-hands type. Until today.

But she wasn’t here for a holiday fling. Reaching into her purse, she extracted a twenty-pound note. “I’m running out of time. Are you above being bribed?”