Gentlemen Prefer Mischief Read Online Free PDF Page B

Fiend yet, and then—what the devil?—Lily grabbed him around the waist. She knocked him backward down the hill.
    They rolled and slid down the incline, sticks and brush scratching them, until they came to rest at the bottom, with her on top. Hal could hear the diminishing sounds of the enemy escaping, and farther away what was doubtless Colin giving chase.
    “Let me up,” he said quickly, trying to move under what seemed a dead weight. “I might still catch him.”
    She didn’t reply.
    “Lily? Are you hurt?”
    She gasped against his chest and moved jerkily, and he realized she was trying to breathe. Her pointy elbows dug into his ribs.
    “You’ve had the wind knocked out of you,” he said, keeping the disappointment out of his tone. He could hardly throw her off him, but unless Colin was quick, the Fiend would escape.
    “I’ll lie still while you try to breathe slowly.” He put an arm over her back to steady her so she wouldn’t roll off him and silently gnashed his teeth.
    They lay there in the dark woods as she gasped shallowly. A rock pressed into his back, hard with her weight added to his. A few feet away, a small creature moved about in the dry leaves.
    Her breathing became more regular. Just below his chin, her head lay against his neck, and the fresh scent of her hair teased his nose. Violets? Did violets have a scent?
    Dear God, but having her lying across him was working upon him. It had been months since he’d known the receptive softness only a woman could offer.
    She shifted and pressed against his hips, and he almost groaned. Under his forearm her rib cage seemed fragile, made on such a smaller scale than his own. She was a petite, tightly wound, governessish woman whose attitude toward him was far from warm. But she was also refreshingly apart from what his life felt filled with: compromises, gossip, vacancy. Could a life be filled with vacancy? He was overcome with the urge to bury his face in her neck, to kiss her and touch her and do everything.
    “Oh,” she muttered, apparently now able to speak.
    She pushed herself off his chest, grinding him further onto the rock as she shifted onto the ground. He sat up next to her, his mind refocused on their purpose. Or at least, on his purpose, as he was now very suspicious about hers.
    “Do forgive me,” she said as they stood. “I tripped.”
    He brushed at the leaves and twigs stuck to his clothes and hair. “That was an odd sort of tripping. You had me by the waist.”
    “The Fiend startled me, being right there. That caused me to trip against you, and I tried to catch myself.”
    “And then it was just an accident that you and I ended up rolling down the hill.”
    “Exactly.” She seemed eager to confirm this version of events, especially for someone who so far had not agreed with him about anything.
    “That’s odd, because from the sound you made when I stumbled on our man, I thought perhaps you’d recognized him.”
    A pause. “How should I have seen anything in the darkness?”
    “There was some light in the clearing. I saw dark hair.”
    “Well, if I knew who the Fiend was, why wouldn’t I have gone to that person myself and insisted he stop?”
    She was being purposefully obtuse. “No doubt you would have. If you had known that you knew the person.”
    “That is so nonsensical a statement I can hardly follow it.”
    A shout came from not far away—Colin looking for them.
    “Here,” she shouted, practically in Hal’s ear. “We’re coming.”
    He would bet she was grateful for any reason to end their conversation, but he could hardly insist they stand there in the night woods and finish it. They made for the sound of Colin’s voice.
    ***
    Lily was grateful to step out of the darkness of the woods and into the moonlit meadow on the Thistlethwaite side as they followed the earl’s voice .
    Already a foolish part of her wanted to relive the moments of feeling Roxham’s muscle and bone and energy underneath her. He