Compromised Miss

Compromised Miss Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: Compromised Miss Read Online Free PDF
Author: Anne O'Brien
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Historical, Regency
eye. For a little while at least she could pretend that he was hers and this was their home where the world could not encroach. Where she could live as she chose. She would walk on the cliffs, this man holding her hand, telling her how beautiful she was, how his heart beat for her, whilst she could tell him that her heart had fallen into his hands, as softly as a ripe plum. At night he would hold her in his arms, unfolding for her all the delights that could exist between a man and a woman. Rousing her with hands and mouth, with the slide of his naked flesh against hers…No harm in imagining the possessive touch of his fingers as they linked with hers, as they curled into her hair, holding her captive so that his mouth could take hers. No harm in considering the breathless, heated pleasure of that body, stripped and powerful, pinning her to the sheets, taking her, making her his.
    Enough! Harriette’s smile became contemptuous. It was all an illusion, a figment of her sad imagination. He would approve of her being a smuggler quite as little as she would accept that he was a spy! Yet for a moment, still clutching at her ridiculous dreams, Harriette leaned over him and touched the sculpted sinews and tendons of his unbound arm, encircling his wrist where his pulse beat against her fingers, turning his hand, shivering when once again his fingers instinctively curled around hers and held on.Whatever he was, whoever he was, she was glad he was safe.
    ‘Sleep now,’ she whispered. ‘I will care for you. No need to fear.’
    She still did not even know his name.
    It was a long night. The man slept but restlessly. When his breathing became ragged, Harriette dosed him with some nameless and evil-tasting concoction of Meggie’s, thinking it at least as good as anything Sam Babbercombe would do. Then, since she hadn’t the heart to summon Jenny back, she took it upon herself to sit and watch over him through the dark hours. So she sat and let the hours pass. Stood, stretched, looked out of the window at the changing shape of clouds over the waxing moon. Tried to read by the flickering light of the two candles and gave it up. Simply sat and watched the pain and confusion shift over his face, praying more fervently than she had for years that this was simply a fever that would pass.
    At some point after midnight, his restlessness became more intense, hands clawing to grip the sheet as he fell under the control of some dream, head thrashing from side to side. Perspiration beaded his brow, the expanse of his chest. Although his eyes opened, the bright gaze was blurred and unseeing.
    ‘Softly.’ She stood to make use of a damp cloth soaked in lavender, afraid his restlessness would start the bleeding again. ‘You’re safe. You’re in no danger.’
    As if responding to her voice, he grasped her wrist urgently. Surprising her with its power. His voice was harsh, his question stark with fear.
    ‘Marie-Claude. Are you Marie-Claude?’
    ‘No. I am not.’
    ‘Marie-Claude…Where is she?’
    ‘She’s safe.’ It was an obvious answer in the face of his despair.
    ‘I can’t find her…’ His grip tightened.
    ‘You will. Rest now. She’ll come to you….’
    He lay quietly. Harriette thought for a moment that he had accepted her assurance, but then his movements became edgy as if still caught up in a web of anxieties.
    ‘But she’s lost,’ he whispered, eyes opening blindly. ‘I don’t know where she is and I can’t find her.’
    Harriette was moved by a desire to give him some respite from whatever tracked and haunted him in his dark mind as she enclosed his hand between both of hers. If she could anchor him to the present, it might stave off the monsters in his dreams. ‘Hush. You need to sleep. I’ll keep the nightmares at bay.’
    It seemed that he focused on her in the end. But to no great satisfaction.
    ‘No one can do that for me. No one can stop them.’Then he slid down the slope into unconsciousness again. His
Read Online Free Pdf

Similar Books

Black Tide Rising

R.J. McMillen

Summer of the Geek

Piper Banks

Harmony

Marjorie B. Kellogg

Tangled Betrayals

Lynn Wolfe

The Confession

R.L. Stine

The Very Best of F & SF v1

Gordon Van Gelder (ed)

Neighbors

Ashleigh Royce

Fireborn

Keri Arthur