One Day for a Valet (NORTHAM HALL #2) by Laura Linn EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Laura Linn
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 7 MB
- Price: Free
DEVONSHIRE, JUNE 1826-
“Sofi, have you heard a word of what I’ve been saying for the last five
minutes?”
Sofia stopped walking, her lips pressing into a thin line, but the
truth was, she hadn’t been listening. From the stiff English dress scratching
like tree bark against her skin, to the stab of unforgiving pins in her tootight chignon, everything chafed, her conscience worst of all. Listening to
her brother repeat everything he had been droning on about for weeks didn’t
seem likely to improve her state of mind.
Pausing, Oliver glanced over his shoulder and grimaced as if she was
the disappointment. “I said, I will come back at noon and wait just there on
the outskirts of the apple orchard. If you don’t arrive within an hour, I’ll
assume they hired you on.” Pulling a flask from his coat pocket, he drew
several deep swallows before sliding it out of sight. “I know you’re not
happy about this, but you’ll just have to trust me, little flea.” His thick
Italian slurred across the affectionate moniker, and Sofia tried without
success to suppress a shudder. He was, as ever, oblivious to her distress.
Oliver sighed, his hand still hovering over his pocket. “This is what’s
best for us. Surely you know I would never do anything to hurt you.”
But that was the crux of the problem. She didn’t trust him. Not like she
once had. And how that hurt. Faith in Oliver’s eventual return had sustained
her through his two-year-long absence and the gradual unravelling of her
life, but the joy that had blazed through her veins upon seeing him again
had long since flickered away.
“Yes, I hear you. Noon,” Sofia parroted, turning away. But before she
could take a step, his warm hand wrapped around her wrist and urged her
back. The care in his touch, so achingly familiar, silenced her discordant
thoughts just as it had when she was a child and she met his eyes. “I’ll try.”
His hand slid down to clasp hers, his thumb tracing the jutting bone of
her first knuckle. “That’s not what I was going to say.” One corner of his
mouth quirked up. “I was going to tell you to be careful. Be careful, and …
I love you.”
She nodded, easing her hand from his grasp, and walked away.
It had taken Oliver the bulk of their journey to convince Sofia to take
part in his plan. And it had been a long journey. Painfully so. Jostling along
the endless dusty roads leading away from the Peninsula, she’d lost and
found her nerve to argue with him some twenty times, and she’d made
countless discoveries about the brother who had returned to her. Chief
amongst them was the discovery that he had spent the better part of the past
two years living in the bottom of a wine bottle. Certainly metaphorically
and perhaps even geographically based on his aroma.
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