I Thee Wed Read Online Free

“Champing at the bit, eh? Rightly so! It is good to see a young man who can keep his mind on the job at hand! On with it, then.” He waved his hands negligently at the staff as he passed through them. “I’ll meet you in the laboratory before dinner, Worthington!”
    Orion took distant note of Judith’s social dexterity even as he admired her efficient command of the staff. He followed the footmen as they hefted his trunk and bags and marched up the stairs in a military fashion. He did not look at Miss Francesca Penrose again. He had always had a superior level of self-control.
    Ignoring the small dark beauty took every bit of his strength of will.

Chapter 3
    W ITH a frown, Francesca watched the handsome newcomer climb the stairs. He was as attractive going away as he was coming forward.
    He had behaved as if she did not even exist. The moment she had stepped forward, his eyes had glazed over and he’d gone quite slack-jawed. Boredom? Distaste, assuredly.
    She turned to her cousin. “Do I have flour on my nose?” She was admittedly a bit of a mess. Perhaps he’d supposed himself being introduced to a servant?
    Judith dutifully checked the aforementioned nose. “You are entirely free of flour or flourlike debris,” she said in utter seriousness. Factual as a textbook, that Judith.
    Francesca sighed, her shoulders drooping dramatically for half a moment. She’d hoped Uncle Geoffrey’s new assistant would provide some distraction or even some intellectual stimulation. Judith limited her conversation to stated facts, and Uncle Geoffrey did not discuss science with anyone unluckily burdened by breasts. Judith’s suitors, their only visitors, were an insipid lot who preferred poetry and minuets.Francesca’s fights—er, debates—with Blayne House’s vociferous cook provided her with more interesting conversation than did that spineless lot.
    At least Mr. Worthington was a treat to the eye. Goodness, he was tall, dark, and toothsome! As lean as the wolf he’d brought to mind, he moved up the steps with a physical fluidity that spoke more of fencing or pugilism than a life of puttering about in a laboratory. He was, in short, absolutely, divinely delicious.
    He was also cold and unbearable, despite the way he made her toes curl up in her slippers. No matter. That was merely the biological imperative at work. Well-formed, virile, highly intelligent males were bound to set off a few nerve endings.
    Pity there were no other examples present on whom to test her theory.
    Francesca’s mood shifted swiftly—as her moods so oft tended to do—and she gazed at Judith indignantly. “Handsome is as handsome does!”
    Judith blinked. “Your use of idiom does you no service in pursuit of true knowledge. Colorful speech indicates an untidy—”
    Francesca threw up her hands in Gallic frustration. “An untidy mind! Yes, I believe Uncle Geoffrey has made his views most clear on that topic!”
    Judith glanced up the stairs. “I must see that our newest addition is comfortable. If you will excuse me, Cousin?”
    Francesca wondered, as she sometimes did, what her endlessly placid cousin would do if Francesca suddenly threw her head back and cursed loudly and fluently in Italian. Not that she was much inclined to vulgarity, really. It was only that she was so very frustrated!
    All her life, she’d dreamed of traveling to her father’s birthplace of England. According to her Italian mother’s extended family, she was entirely too English for her own good. Francesca’s lovely mother had reassured her that she was as Italianas any of them, but even as a child, Francesca had known that wasn’t true. Although she knew she was loved, she did not fit in among the large Veratti clan. In the four years since Mama had passed, it had only become more apparent.
    They were a very intellectual band, the Verattis. Nearly all of