Late for the Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page A

of
    Aspasia."
      Yes, well, I am concerning myself with that subject. Furthermore,
    the fact that I trust you does not mean that I relish the sight of you
    standing in your shirtsleeves with another woman's arms draped
    around your neck."
    He smiled slowly.   You make yourself quite clear, my dear."
    You are not to make a regular practice of that sort of thing, sir. Is
    that understood?"
    He raised one hand to trace the engraving of the goddess Minerva
    that decorated the silver pendant she wore at her throat.   You are
    the only woman whose arms I want around my neck."
    She got almost no warning,   just a brief glimpse of the candle
    flame reflected in his eyes,   before he kissed her. The urgent,
    driving hunger in him thrilled her senses. But it also made her
    wonder again about the precise nature of his conversation with his
    new client.
    She had experienced this incendiary desire flowing from him
    often enough in the past to recognize it. His dark passions had their
    source in a well of midnight buried deep within him. He kept the
    channel to that place closed and locked for the most part, but it had
    been opened tonight. She suspected that was Aspasia Gray's doing.
    Tobias."
    He locked her hard against him, one arm around her neck, the
    other anchoring her waist.   When you told me not to bother coming
    here tonight, I felt as if you had plunged that spear you carried
    straight into my heart."
      I did not mean it," she whispered against his neck.   Indeed, I was
    only biding my time up here until I went back downstairs to your
    bed chamber."
    You had every right to be angry." He kissed her mouth, her cheek,
    and then her throat.   But there was no need, I swear it."
      She did it deliberately, didn't she? She heard the door open and
    she put her arms around you at that instant so that I would see the
    two of you together."
      No, I'm sure that she meant only to convey a token of her gratitude, because I had just agreed to make inquiries on her behalf. You
    happened to open the door at the wrong moment."
      Rubbish."
      Devil take it, forget that damned embrace. I do not care about
    Aspasia." He lifted her off her feet and started across the small
    room. You are the only one I care about and this is the only embrace
    that matters."
    Tobias, the bed"
      I am getting us there as swiftly as possible."
      But it is much too narrow for the two of us."
      You and I are nothing if not resourceful, madam. We have, upon
    occasion, made do with the seat of a carriage. I feel certain we can
    manage a small bed."
    He spilled her carefully onto the cot and came down on top of her.
    She felt herself crushed into the bedding. The skirts of her expensive new gown, purchased especially for the jaunt to the country,
    were getting crushed, but in that moment she did not care a jot.
    Tobias lowered her bodice and kissed her until her skin burned
    hot. She framed his face between her palms and responded with a
    passion that never failed to astonish her. Until she met Tobias, she
    had not dreamed that she was capable of such intensity of feeling.
    Even at times like this, when he was in the grip of his darker
    passions, she responded to him. No, it was more than that, she
    thought, she needed to respond to him, especially at such times.
    On these rare occasions when he opened the path to that deep
    wellspring of midnight inside himself, she glimpsed an aspect of his
    true nature that he allowed no one else to know. She recognized the
    powerful, elemental force within him all too well because it called to
    an opposite but equally strong aspect of her own being.
    In the past few weeks she had slowly begun to accept that she
    and Tobias were linked in some metaphysical fashion that she did
    not yet fully understand. Perhaps she would never entirely compre
    hend the nature of the connection between them, but she knew now
    that she could no longer deny it.
    She had not dared to speak of these matters to Tobias. She knew
    that he