Jane and the Damned Read Online Free PDF Page B

sick of the subject within a few hours. You should have come with us so we could not bore you about it.”
    “Would you have danced with me, Miss Jane?”
    “Of course.”
    He ushered her into the morning room where breakfast was laid out on the sideboard and Jane stared at the array of cakes and breads that would otherwise normally tempt her. The seedcake, usually a favorite, looked pallid and dull. Harris, wielding the carving knife and fork, offered her a slice of ham. The meat curled onto her plate, limp, the stripe of fat topped with golden breadcrumbs unappetizing.
    Noticing that Harris, plate in hand, stared at his food, obviously anxious to sit and eat, she took a small piece of bread and butter and sat. The footman on duty in the room poured her coffee and Harris a pewter mug of ale, and then left to replenish the hot water.
    Jane cut the ham into small squares, forked one into her mouth, and chewed. Salty, cold, unsatisfying.
    Beside her, Harris dug into his breakfast, a plateful of ham, bread, pickles, and cake, with great enthusiasm. Jane braced herself for a polite conversation with a young man who was altogether shy, in awe of her, and more than half in love with her, something she had suspected for the past couple of years and now did not doubt. She did not want to meet his gaze, frightened that someone who knew her only a little would detect something different, some otherness in her. She watched his hands, large and clumsy—like a puppy, he seemed to grow in fits and starts—his wrists revealed by his cuffs, as though this week his arms had decided to grow too. A visit to the tailor would be necessary soon; but Harris, heir to several properties, signified by his hyphenated surname, would find a lack of money no impediment.
    Harris, his plate cleared, drained his mug of ale and laid his knife and fork neatly on his plate.
    “Excellent!” he declared. “But, Jane, you‧ve eaten hardly a thing!”
    “I fear I overindulged last night at the punch bowl,” she confessed, wondering that she could sustain light conversation while staring at Harris‧s hand and wrist. His fingers werecurled still around the handle of his pewter mug, and his wrist, bared as the ruffles of his shirt cuff fell away, was revealed to her. She caught her breath at the sight of the blue veins against his pale skin.
    “I w-wish you rode, Jane,” he said, oblivious of her attention. “For we have a mare, a very gentle mare in the stables that Papa and I bought for my sisters and—”
    He stopped and his face took on an expression of fright, or delight, she really couldn‧t tell which, as she reached across and grasped his wrist, shoving his plate out of the way. He resisted a little, but not much.
    “Wh-why, what are you about?”
    She didn‧t answer but drew his wrist toward her. As clear as day she heard his thoughts—
Good heavens, what if Papa or Mama—should I kiss her? Does she want me to? Does this mean I shall have to marry her? Oh Lord, that embarrassing thing‧s happening again, but the tablecloth—
    She shoved the excited babble aside and raised his wrist to her mouth and breathed in his scent. The delicate tracery of blue veins and the ropes and hollows of tendons were close to her lips; the back of his hand was rough with springy, fine hair as her fingers closed over the bones. He resisted a little more with a gasp of surprise, but she had him fast.
    “Jane, s-stop, it is not proper—” He stood and tried to shake her off, but she was stronger than him now.
    Her teeth ached again, smarting at the gums and sharp against her own lower lip. She ignored the waning voice of her conscience that warned her that what she was about to do was depraved and wicked. Instead she looked into his eyes and saw his frightened, bewildered expression.
    “Don‧t be afraid, Harris.”
    He sighed and relaxed a little—oh heavens, it was so easy—but his heartbeat still thundered. His eyes became dreamy and still and he took a