Captured by a Gentleman (Regency Unlaced 6) Read Online Free PDF

help Darcy travel farther away from London and Sugdon, was this how he could expect to be treated along the way? Thought of as some worthless rake, attempting to conceal his seduction of an innocent young woman, by claiming her as his ward and requesting a second bedchamber no one expected her to use except Ranulf and Darcy? It was an altogether intolerable situation, considering his aversion to becoming involved with any young woman. But most especially one connected to the Sugdon family, no matter how tenuously.
    “I am glad one of us finds the situation amusing,” he snapped.
    It was not so much that Darcy found the situation amusing, more that she was relieved at having escaped her uncle. To have been allowed to eat and drink. To now spend the night sleeping in a comfortable bed, rather than continuing to hide in Ranulf’s carriage, as she had expected to do. Without food or water, or the use of a chamber pot.
    She really had not thought that part of her escape through properly! Not surprising, when her only thought had been to flee, rather than of her comfort during that escape.
    “What time do you intend to rise in the morning?” she prompted.
    Ranulf eyed her with suspicion. “Why?”
    “So that I might order the hot water for your bath and shave—”
    “I have already said you will not be assisting me with my bath.”
    He really did look very handsome when he scowled in that dark and glowering manner. Not like a Mr. at all, but more an arrogant earl or a duke. Or perhaps one of those Grecian gods Darcy had discovered depicted in one of her father’s books in the library at home.
    Her smile faded as she was reminded she would never see either of her parents or their home again.
    In the past four months, Lord Sugdon had sold her parents’ London home, along with its contents. The same with the small estate near Cambridge, which had been her mother’s dowry. He assured her he had put her money from those sales in trust for her, part of it to be used as her own dowry, when or if she married.
    By running away, she had forgone any hopes of ever marrying or ever having access to that fortune.
    “Now what have I said to stop you smiling?” Ranulf bit out his impatience. “Oh very well, you may not assist with my bath, but you may help me to shave in the morning— I believe I told you to keep your distance,” he added firmly as Darcy stood and would have crossed the room to do God knows what. Attempt to hug him about some part of his anatomy, probably.
    Not a good idea, considering the interest his cock had already taken when she decided to bounce up and down on the bed to test its comfort. Darcy herself seemed completely unaware of the way her breasts jiggled up and down as she did so. Full and creamy breasts, visible above the rounded neckline of her gown.
    A mourning gown, Ranulf reminded himself firmly. Also, as a single young woman, Darcy was in all likelihood still an innocent. She was also, temporarily, his responsibility, and still in mourning for the deaths of her parents.
    “I was only going to hug you.” She looked hurt by his rejection. “It is so long since…since I have had anyone to hug, or for them to hug me.”
    Oh dear God…
    Ranulf was three and thirty, not three and seventy, and the throbbing of his cock told him his physical reaction to this woman was certainly not avuncular—
    Considering the behavior of her uncle, perhaps it was?
    Not that Ranulf considered his reaction to Darcy, unlike that of Cecil Sugdon’s, to be in the least inappropriate. Ranulf was a good twenty years younger than the other man, and he had not even known of Darcy’s existence until today. He certainly had not watched her grow from a child to burgeoning womanhood. As such, Ranulf considered his own physical response to her to merely be that of a healthy male to a beautiful woman.
    “Perhaps it has been as long since you felt the comfort of a warm hug too?”
    Ranulf tensed. “What the devil do you