Disrobed and Dishonored Read Online Free PDF Page B

stroking the warm, soft skin of her shoulder with his palm. Sarah was not some pouting Society beauty buying what she wanted, careless of the feelings of those she used. She was different, and he was beginning to find that very difference disturbingly appealing.
    The clock struck one as he pulled the light coverlet up over their bodies and let himself drift off to sleep, his mind full of new and disconcerting possibilities, his arms full of curves and fragrance.
     
    ‘Sarah.’ She came up out of a dream of Jonathan to find him there, bending over her, fully dressed.
    ‘You are real,’ she observed, half-fuddled with sleep and pleasure, then smiled as his eyes crinkled with amusement at her folly. ‘Of course you are. What time is it?’
    ‘Four. I must go before the household stirs.’
    She sat up, careless of the way the sheet fell to her waist, and surprised at how quickly she had become so shameless in his presence. ‘You are leaving Saint’s Ford, aren’t you? You will not be coming back.’ Of course he would not; this was merely an unusual incident for him. For her, she realized, watching his face in the candlelight, it was everything. She had solved the problem of Sir Jeremy and paid with her heart for it.
    Jonathan stroked the back of his hand down her cheek. ‘Your highwayman will never come back, Sarah. Would you be glad to think that perhaps you have reformed me?’
    ‘I do not think you were ever a very dangerous highwayman,’ she observed, fighting to keep her tone light. ‘So I doubt I can claim much merit for any reformation that has occurred. But yes, it is not a safe occupation for a man such as yourself: I would not like to think you might have ended on a gallows.’
    ‘A man such as myself?’ he asked, his mouth twisting into a smile that seemed to mock himself, not her.
    ‘Honorable, kind, brave and clever,’ Sarah said, wondering at Jonathan’s sudden stillness.
    ‘Thank you,’ he said softly, lifting her hand and pressing his lips to her knuckles. ‘You give me something to live up to, my sweet.’ He was on his feet, and unlocking the door before she could say anything else. Then he paused in the open doorway before slipping like a ghost into the dark corridor and away.
     
    ‘I suppose you expect me to allow you to go to that house party your school friend invited you to, despite your behavior,’ Sir Hugh Tatton snapped as Sarah sat nibbling listlessly at her bread and butter ten days later.
    ‘Jessica Gifford?’ She had forgotten all about that invitation. Jessica, a firm friend despite a two-year difference in their ages, had left school to earn her own living as a governess, and then, by some miracle, had met and married Lord Standon.
    ‘She is the Countess of Standon now, Papa. And it is Lady Dereham whose invitation it was. She is a cousin of Lord Standon’s.’
    ‘Lords, ladies—hah! Aye, and there was something smoky about that match, from what one hears,’ Sir High grumbled. ‘Henrietta wrote to me from London to say Standon was kicking up no end of a to-do, flaunting his new mistress all over Town, and the next thing we know he’s off on the Continent marrying some governess he finds there, if you please.’
    ‘She has obviously reformed him, Sir Hugh,’ Mrs. Catchpole ventured nervously, still obviously expecting retribution for not exercising sufficient control over Sarah. ‘And she must be a superior young woman if she went to Miss Fletching’s Academy, as Sarah did.’
    ‘Hah!’
    ‘And it might be as well if dear Sarah does attend the party. There will be numerous eligible gentlemen present. Gentlemen who would be interested in making a speedy match if the dowry is right…’ She let her voice trail away as Sarah felt her blushes mounting. Somehow she kept her mouth closed on the vehement rejection of any suggestion that she might try to palm off her love child on an unsuspecting husband.
    ‘Indeed,’ Sir Hugh said slowly. ‘A point well made,