Jane Goodger Read Online Free PDF Page A

remove it. Or at least loosen it.”
    She looked up at him and he felt the blue of her eyes as an almost tangible blow. “But, Boone,” she said, making the smallest attempt at a smile. “I hardly know you.”
    And then she fainted dead away.
    Boone watched her eyes roll back into her head and caught her before she tumbled forward to the floor. He laid her back and immediately began undoing the tiny buttons that started at her throat and moved down to just below her waist. When Agatha entered the room with the cloth, he laid it on the girl’s head and squeezed so that the cool water soaked into her hair.
    “Agatha, could you please explain to me why women need to wear these things?” he asked as he began unlacing the offending garment.
    “I don’t. And Dulce wouldn’t be caught dead in one.”
    Boone was quite aware that Dulce didn’t wear a corset. In fact, nearly every man in Small Fork, with the exception of old Blind Pete, knew Dulce didn’t wear much of anything to cover up her body.
    Within moments of his beginning to unlace her corset, those blue eyes opened and gazed at him with a certain amount of pique.
    “You fainted,” Boone said. For some reason he found it necessary to explain why he was unlacing her. The girl made him extremely uncomfortable, and he had to fight to maintain his impassionate doctor’s demeanor, though for the life of him he didn’t know why it was such a struggle. Hell, of course he knew why. Lying before him in a state of half dress was perhaps the most beautiful bit of femininity he’d ever seen. And she was smiling at him.
    “I fainted. And so you took advantage of that moment to undress me?”
    Boone almost smiled. Almost. “The reason you fainted, I suspect, is a combination of the heat and this corset.”
    “I’ve been wearing corsets since I was sixteen years old and I’ve never fainted before. It is this heat. I daresay I’ve never felt anything like it in my life.”
    “Where is she from? ” Agatha asked.
    “I’m from Hollings, England. It’s near the sea. The wonderfully cool, refreshing sea,” she said darkly.
    “Fancy talk,” Agatha muttered, but with absolutely no malice. It was as if everything that came out of Miss Wellesley’s mouth was a combination of amusing and amazing.
    Amelia pushed Boone’s hands away. “I’m quite fine now,” she said, and sat up, only to instantly grab at her head, which no doubt felt as if it were about to fall off her slender shoulders.
    Agatha disappeared and reappeared in less than a minute with a glass of water in her hands. “Drink this. And when was the last time you ate? Honestly, Boone, a good breeze could blow this one over.”
    Boone watched as she reached for the glass with a shaking hand.
    “I don’t understand it. You’re going to be thinking I’m some sort of pampered weakling. Honestly, I’ve never been fragile. My brother would joke how I should have been a boy because I like to climb trees.”
    It suddenly dawned on Boone just why a young girl would travel from England to Small Fork, Texas, in pursuit of his brother. He didn’t know how he could have been so stupid. No woman in her right mind would leave her home to chase Carson, especially not a lady from England who obviously would have no trouble finding a husband. Unless, of course, she’d done something unforgivable. Unless, she was running away.
    “Agatha, would you excuse us please?” Boone said, and watched as Agatha’s eyes widened.
    “You think?”
    Boone shook his head to silence the woman. Clearly Agatha had come to the same conclusion as he, at about the same time.
    Lady Amelia Hollings was obviously pregnant, and it was just as obvious, given that she hadn’t seen Carson in seven months, that it wasn’t his brother’s child.

Chapter 3
    Amelia watched, looking slightly bemused as the older woman left the room.
    “I’m dying,” she said dramatically, making fun.
    “You’re pregnant.”
    Of all the reactions he’d