Green Eyes Read Online Free PDF Page B

ordinarily hung above the entry to the kitchen (and that probably hadn’t been moved for a hundred years) and Davis with a poker. Panting, breathless, they charged through the door only to come to a sudden stop. Their eyes popped as they beheld Anna, both hands pressed to her mouth in an effort to stop the shattering cries that issued from it, her hair wildly disheveled and her night rail clearly visible beneath the too-large cloak that fell from her shoulders. She was leaning over the prostrate form of a very large, unknown man. The heavy silver candlestick that normally stood on the hall table lay on its side at Anna’s feet, and a pistol rested on the flagstones some little distance away. Smoke and the acrid scent of gunpowder filled the air.
    “Miss Anna, what’s happened? Who is that?”
    Davis had known her from childhood. With the privilege of an old family retainer he hurried across the floor to give her shoulder a good shake. “Miss Anna, hush that noise and tell us: are you hurt?”
    The old butler’s obvious concern did more than the one-handed shake to silence Anna’s hysterical cries. She gulped once, twice, shuddered, and looked down at the man she had felled.
    “Oh, Davis, have I killed him?” she asked faintly. The housebreaker lay inert on his back, his face as pale as hers felt. From where she stood, it was impossible to tell if he still breathed. Anna remembered the sound of the blow and felt sick. Abruptly she sank to her knees as her legs refused to support her any longer. Davis hovered over her while Beedle shifted from foot to foot, both men clearly at a loss.
    “Miss Anna, did he harm you? Are you shot—or worse?” Davis’s voice was low and fierce.
    Both servants’ eyes were fixed on her person, Anna looked down at where their eyes rested and felt herself blush. A too-thin shoulder and the upper slope of a creamy breast, exposed by the rip in her night rail, were clearly visible beneath the open cloak. Made clumsy by shock, her fingers fumbled to close the sides of the cloak and hold them together, thus restoring her modesty.
    “No. No, he didn’t hurt me. And nobody was actually shot,” she said in a low voice, her eyes moving to the man who lay so frighteningly still less than a foot away. “There was a struggle and the gun went off, but it missed. Then I—hit him. With the candlestick.”
    “Miss Anna, you never did!” Beedle’s voice was full of admiration. Davis shot him a silencing look and bent to rest a cautious hand on the housebreaker’s neck, his poker held at the ready.
    “He’s not dead.”
    At Davis’s pronouncement Anna felt a quiver of relief. He was a thief, and an impudent rogue, and undoubtedly a very bad man, but she wouldn’t want his blood on her hands. Not even when she remembered the heart-shaking power of his kiss—or the shocking way he had dared to touch her.
    At the memory, her body went first hot, then cold. Her eyes moved warily to the unconscious man on the floor even as her hand lifted of its own volition to scrub across her mouth. She knew it had to be her imagination, but it seemed as if the taste of him lingered still.
    “What’s ’appened? What’s ’appened?” Mrs. Mullins, the stout, white-haired housekeeper, came puffing up through the passage that led to the servants’ quarters, bearing a lighted taper that she carefully shielded from the draft. At any other time Anna would have smiled to see her in her night rail with her feet bare and her cap askew. But at the moment she was in no mood for smiling. Her stomach churned, and she felt curiously light-headed. The thought that popped into her mind, refusing to be banished, was, Dear Lord, what have I done?
    If she had it to do over again, she would have choked on the end of his cloak before giving way to the screams that had brought the household down upon them—although of course the shot would have brought them running in any case. She could not have let him just carry her off;