More Than Willing by Laura Landon

have a response for that. Many times she’d thought the same about her father.
    Grayson Delaney gave her another broad smile then walked toward the door.
    “Don’t wait up for me,” he said before he left. “I’ll probably be late.”
    Maggie stared at the empty doorway long after she heard him leave the house. Grayson Delaney was the last man on earth she’d wait up for. The last man she wanted to have to rely on. And …
    …the only man who could help her.
    ****
    Gray’s knees almost buckled beneath him as he walked down the four steps that led from Bradford Manor. His legs felt strangely weak when he realized what could have happened to her if he hadn’t been near, and his arms felt empty without her in them.
    He hesitated for a short moment and told himself he’d feel the same way no matter what young, innocent lass he’d found in such a precarious position. Except he couldn’t explain why he wanted to rush back in and hold her again, just to make sure she was safe. That was a puzzle he refused to decipher.
    But at least she hadn’t dismissed him.
    “Bloody hell,” he muttered beneath his breath. He didn’t know what had worried him more while he waited for her in the entryway, the thought that Maggie Bradford would make good on her threat to send him packing—then he’d have to reveal the truth—or hearing the panic in her voice as she fought off her bloody cousin.
    Damn her father to hell and back for leaving her alone with no one to protect her from the vultures who wanted to take advantage of her. Damn Bradford for putting his family in such a precarious position that they had to scrimp and save to make ends meet. Damn him for gambling away the only means of support his family had, then leaving without telling them what he’d done.
    “Bloody hell,” he said with more vehemence as he stepped off the curb to cross the street. If Bradford were here right now he’d beat him to a bloody pulp.
    He crossed the cobblestones with long, angry steps and entered the brewery by the side gate. She had no idea her father had lost the brewery in a card game. She thought she could provide for her sisters and give them a London Season with the profits from a brewery she didn’t own.
    Gray walked through the courtyard toward the stable. The first thing he’d found out when he’d first come is that everyone, from Chester Murdock, the brewery foreman, to Joey Blatt, the broomboy who swept the brewery clean, thought the same as she did, that the brewery would be passed down to her when her father died. And this was met with enthusiasm from every quarter.
    Everyone he’d talked to was more than eager to tell him that Miss Bradford had run the brewery for years – since her mother died. According to Chester Murdock, who’d been here longer than anyone except maybe Henry Tibbles, Harold Bradford was a terrible manager and if it wouldn’t have been for his wife, he’d have lost the brewery years ago.
    Gray couldn’t help but wonder what they’d think when they discovered he owned the brewery now. Or, how many of them would continue to work for him when they realized who he was.
    So far, no one had associated him with his father, except Miss Bradford. This was the reason it was so important that he prove himself every day. Once they knew he was the Earl of Camden’s second son, it would be nearly impossible to demonstrate that he could run the brewery efficiently.
    Gray walked through the stable and looked over to where Fletcher was putting a smelly poultice on one of the dray horse’s legs. Gray stopped and the old man looked up.
    “I don’t know how you knew to put such a concoction on that swelling, lad, but his leg’s almost good as new.”
    “An old stable hand I used to work with taught me that trick years ago,” Gray lied. He could hardly tell Fletcher he’d learned it from the head groomsman on Camden Estates, who’d learned it from his father before him.
    “Well, no matter who taught you,