An Affair of Honor (Rebel Hearts Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

except for one small detail.
    He’d rarely been alone since he’d returned to this house.
    He’d had Matilda Winslow to watch over him every day and night it seemed.
    An unbearable torture for him.
    Matilda inched toward him, always so gentle in her movements to avoid jostling him and causing further pain. She had taken on her duties as nurse to an invalid with complete dedication. He sometimes forgot they were virtually strangers. She was a maid. A young woman in his employ. A pretty maid whose frequent touches caused his palms to itch.
    Her fingers ghosted over his brow, no doubt checking him for fever as she so often did, and then she peeked at his face.
    Her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean to wake you, Captain.”
    Matilda had spent every night since the surgery at his side or leaning over his bed, tending to him as if he were her only concern. He’d grown used to her being around, but it had to stop. Especially now he was feeling more himself. This one last night was all he could permit himself of her gentle company.
    He licked his lips as the scent of her body curled around them, waking him to the fact that he was only human and weak. If she remained close, he’d become aroused, and that wasn’t something she wanted from him.
    He eased a little to the side, turning his hips so the bedding did not lay too tightly over his growing arousal. “You didn’t,” he whispered. His voice was rusty from disuse, and he felt that he slurred thanks to the hideous scar dissecting his cheek. “I was not sleeping.”
    Matilda beamed at him warmly, a smile so welcoming he feared it. “You spoke.”
    “Obviously. Did you really think me silent because I couldn’t find the words?” He’d kept silent so he wouldn’t reveal how often the woman was on his mind. He considered her, and what she should be doing for his care, far too often for his own peace of mind. “I’d never let you get the last word,” he said stiffly.
    Matilda cried out and impulsively flung herself against his chest in an unwarranted display of affection. Maids did not embrace their employers unless they had an intimate and forbidden relationship. Matilda Winslow had rejected his passions by running from him once before. He feared revealing his needs to her yet again.
    It wasn’t right to torture himself like this, but he did not immediately push her away. Matilda was a soft, impulsive woman though who didn’t have the faintest inkling of how great a test she was to his honor. He’d already failed once quite spectacularly.
    He kept his hands down, pressing them into the sheets.
    “I knew you’d recover,” she whispered.
    “So you did.” He’d not been so overwhelmed with pain that he could forget how Matilda had fought with the surgeons on his behalf. She had insisted the doctor not give up. She had not been turned from her conviction he wanted to live, even if she’d been so very wrong.
    Before her arrival in his bedchamber, William had fought off the hands that clutched at him so he might be left alone to die in peace. Matilda hadn’t allowed him any peace since the moment he’d first laid eyes on her, and today was no different than any other.
    His wish to die had changed the moment Matilda Winslow had sat on him. She’d been impassioned that day. Enough so he’d allowed her will to hold sway over his life. She’d issued orders for his care with authority, understanding what needed to be done to save him with surprising interest for his welfare.
    He would be grateful until his last breath that her faith in his recovery had been greater than his own, but expressing softer feelings was not easy for him. As it was, they’d already passed too close to the bounds of propriety and his own limits.
    He hesitantly touched her loosely tied hair as she clung to him, and desire pecked holes in his defenses and restraint, urging him to act and take what he wanted from this infuriating creature and damn the consequences. He’d done that once and