Dreams of Desire Read Online Free PDF Page A

no one would dare. Especially not a lowly, common lady’s companion. He told people to jump, and they asked, how high? Every person in the kingdom was aware of this fact. It was like an implicit rule of nature. He spoke, and he was obeyed.
    Yet Miss Lambert felt it perfectly permissible to pack her bag and leave without so much as a good-bye. She either had an enormous amount of gall, or she was insane.
    “Would you like to know what has occurred to me, Miss Lambert?”
    “No, but I imagine you’re about to tell me.”
    “It has occurred to me that you’re running away.”
    “Don’t be silly.” She chuckled halfheartedly. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
    “Wouldn’t you?”
    He took a step into the room, and she took one back. He took another, and she retreated until he was fully inside. He kicked the door closed with his heel.
    In an instant, they were sequestered in a fashion that was totally improper, but thrilling to him in ways he didn’t comprehend. He was famous for his cool aplomb, but he was so furious at her snubbing his offer of employment that red circles had formed on the edge of his vision.
    He wanted to shout at her, to shake her, to bend her over his knee and paddle her shapely bottom until she couldn’t sit down for a week. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so alive.
    “Miss Lambert?”
    “Yes?”
    “Insubordination enrages me.”
    She looked indignant. “Who said I was being insubordinate?”
    “I did, and what I say is the law.”
    He reached out and—quick as a snake—grabbed her satchel and tossed it away. Feeling omnipotent and invincible, he loomed in, as she squealed with alarm and lurched back.
    Suddenly, and without warning, he had her trapped against the bedpost. His torso was pressed to hers so that he was touching her all the way down. The sensation was so stirring that he was surprised his knees didn’t buckle.
    With a body made for sinning, she was a delectable combination of mounds and curves and valleys. He was reminded of a painting of a nude that hung in his gentlemen’s club in London, and he couldn’t help but wonder how she’d appear undressed.
    There was a flow of energy passing from him to her, the air energized as if a huge magnet held them together. Had he wanted to move away—which he didn’t—he couldn’t have.
    If he didn’t escape at once, he just might kiss her. All he had to do was lean down, and the deed would be done. An invisible force was drawing him closer and closer . . .
    “Are you going to ravish me?” she asked.
    “You should be so lucky.” Her anxious question jolted him out of his stupor. He stumbled away, breaking the link between them as powerfully as if he’d cut it with a knife.
    They stood, glaring, breathing hard, as if they’d been quarreling, and he supposed they were.
    “I hired you this morning, Miss Lambert, to aid me in a very important capacity, yet I come upon you this evening sneaking out like a thief.”
    “I wasn’t—”
    “Don’t lie to me!” he roared, surprised anew by how she’d disconcerted him. “Isn’t that exactly what’s happening? Should I check your bag to see if it contains silver-ware or candlesticks?”
    “How dare you accuse me of larceny!”
    “With what I’ve just witnessed, what should I think?”
    “Not that, you oaf.”
    “Oaf! Is that how you address your betters?”
    “Yes, if they’re acting crazy. I can’t have you leveling such a dangerous charge. What are you trying to do? Get me hanged?”
    She’d stunned him again. She had a barbed tongue, and she wasn’t afraid to stab him with it. Her audacity was annoying and oddly refreshing. He was surrounded by sycophants and flatterers who told him precisely what he wanted to hear, while she felt free to share her opinions—despite how they might aggravate or offend.
    “Tell me what you’re doing,” he commanded in his most haughty earl’s tone, “and don’t waste my time with more of your nonsense.”
    She