Desires of a Baron Read Online Free Page A

Mr.—” she waved her hand through the air then frowned. “We don’t even know his name.”
    “We could ask him,” he said with a carefree shrug.
    Lucy didn’t even want to know why that wasn’t the first thing Seth had thought to ask the man, but neither did she want to. “And we will ask him,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she’d ask who his family was so she could post a letter to have them come collect him so she could stop worrying about him and start looking for another position.
    Seth tugged on her hand. “Why are we just standing here?”
    Indeed. Why just stand there when there was a naked man in her bed to go interrogate?
    ***
    Simon Appleton was damned uncomfortable lying in a strange bed with nothing more than a thin sheet covering his naked body from the world. But that was hardly anything compared to the scrapes and bruises that covered his body or the steady tattoo of painful drumming that sounded in his head. Not to mention the never-ending string of questions from a boy who Simon still couldn’t determine if he was real or a figment of his imagination. Perhaps taking the indirect way back to London from Telford wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had. He wanted a chance to wander and think. Instead, he was in pain and had been interrogated.
    He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The boy was real. He might not be present right now, but why on earth would Simon’s mind have made up a story about a young boy and his mother having carried him into their house and disrobing him? He wanted to groan, but didn’t have the energy to. Perhaps that was a figment of his imagination, too.
    Oh, hell, he didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. But if the boy was real, then he’d been robbed, beaten, and then carried here to be cared for by said boy and his mother. This time he did groan. The identity of the boy—and even his existence—was still very foggy to Simon, but the aching of his body declared that he had indeed been beaten quite severely.
    A door creaked in the distance and Simon snapped his eyes open. Were those voices?
    The voices grew closer. One he recognized right away as that of the boy who’d plagued him with inane questions, presumably to keep him conscious, if he were indeed conscious to begin with, then regaled him with his own heroic tale. The other was new. Perhaps it was the boy’s mother? He closed his eyes to regain his bearings, banishing the voice along with his view of the room.
    Suddenly, the boy’s excited voice floated to his ears, and just as suddenly, it was gone.
    “ Perhaps he went back to sleep,” a decidedly female voice soothed.
    Simon’s eyes snapped open as quickly as they could under the circumstances. That voice sounded like that of an angel, and he must see her form to verify. Of a medium height, with raven hair and blue eyes, she stood gracefully near the side of his, no her, bed. She looked younger than he’d expected the boy’s mother to be so she must be a sister or cousin. Or just someone from the village. Not that he cared just what her relation to the boy was she was welcome to his bedside anytime.
    Simon cleared his throat and his thoughts simultaneously. “Good afternoon, Miss…”
    “Whitaker,” she supplied, tucking a tendril of her long, dark hair behind her ear. “My name is Lucy Whitaker, and you are?”
    “ Simon Appleton,” he said without hesitation.
    “ And I’m Seth,” the boy standing near Lucy said.
    Simon nodded his understanding of the boy but didn’t take his eyes off Lucy. She was a very beautiful young woman. More beautiful than— He twisted his lips in disgust that his mind had even thought of her . He grimaced in pain.
    “ Is something wrong?” Lucy asked as she rushed to his side.
    He forced a smile and shook his head. “No, not at all.”
    She slowly nodded once and gave him a wary, sidelong glance.
    Simon nearly cursed himself for his sarcasm and cleared his throat. He looked to the boy to offer him