A Stolen Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

necklace up in its velvet, then paused and looked at her consideringly. “Did you think I had a wife and yet was—” He glanced toward the doorway.
    “Making advances to me?”
    “Yes, making advances to you in my own wife’s home. You must think me a very low creature.”
    Alexandra shrugged. “I know nothing about you, sir. I mean, my lord. You were, after all, intimating that I was putting myself in danger by being alone with you. If you are the sort to take advantage of a woman alone, I would suppose the fact of a wife would not stop you.”
    He winced. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”
    “I try not to.” Alexandra softened her words with a smile, a dimple peeking in one cheek. “Actually, I did not think you were the sort. But I have always found it best not to assume too much.”
    “Mm.” He wrapped the other necklace and returned them to the safe.
    “Where is the original ruby?” Alexandra asked. “Did you keep it?”
    He smiled at her intuition. “Yes. Would you like to see it?”
    “Very much—if you don’t mind showing it to me.”
    He reached into the safe again and pulled out a small pouch. Bringing it to where Alexandra stood, he opened the pouch and turned it upside down. The uncut ruby rolled into his hand. “I’m afraid it’s not as impressive as the necklace. It’s not polished or cut. I left it as it was.”
    Alexandra smiled with something like approval. “That is exactly what I would have done.”
    He held it out to her, and she took it, holding it in her palm and looking at it from this angle, then that, and finally handed it back to him. He replaced the ruby in its bag and closed it up in the safe. He turned to her. Normally he would have shown a visitor no more than what he already had, if that much. But he found himself wanting to show her more. He took her arm.
    “Come upstairs. I will show you the India room.”
    They climbed the wide, curving staircase to the next floor. Alexandra knew that this must be the floor on which the family bedrooms and more private sitting rooms lay, and it made her feel a little odd to be here alone with him. But she put the thought aside; she was not going to allow proprieties to spoil her enjoyment of this day. She had waited for years, it seemed, for a chance to view the kind of things Lord Thorpe was showing her.
    Thorpe ushered her into a room, and Alexandra let out an exclamation of pleasure. The entire room had been given over to India. Huge jewel-toned cushions were scattered around the floor, which was softened by a wine-colored rug in the stylized Mogul fashion. Precisely realistic portraits of men in Indian dress hung on the walls, along with two more ornate swords. A chest of beaten brass, a low, round table of intricately carved wood and several pedestals and shelves held more treasures. There was a large head of Buddha made from gold and decorated with jewels. A vase of obvious antiquity filled with long, lovely peacock feathers stood on the floor, and several other pieces of pottery, some painted or gilded, others glazed, sat atop pedestals. There were ivory and jade statues of various animals, from elephants to tigers to coiling cobras, as well as figures of Hindu gods and goddesses and legendary heroes. Alexandra could not resist picking up first this one, then that, running her finger over the delicate carving.
    “They’re beautiful,” she breathed. “Look at this knife.” She picked up a small, curved knife with an ivory hilt carved into the figure of a tiger, smoothing her finger over the hilt. “It seems odd that there would be such beauty expended on a thing of destruction.”
    Thorpe watched her as she examined the things in the cabinet. Her face glowed as if lit from within, making her even more beautiful. He wondered if she would glow like that, her eyes soft and lambent, when she was making love. He knew, with a heat low in his abdomen, that it was something he would like to discover. Her fingers moved