Lost Lady Read Online Free PDF

might as well resign yourself to the fact that you will have to.”
    Jerking away from him, she set her jaw. “I can be as stubborn as you.” She smiled wickedly. “And besides, I know you’re leaving for America soon. You’ll have to release me then.”
    Travis seemed to consider this idea for a moment. “I’ll have to do something with you then, won’t I?” he replied, rubbing his chin. “I’d certainly hate to sail for America and leave those legs of yours without a proper protector.”
    Gasping, Regan grabbed an edge of the bed sheet and tried to pull it off, but a far corner was caught. As Travis moved toward her and leaned across the bed to release the corner, he slipped a hand up under her shirt and gave her buttocks a firm caress.
    Regan squealed once before she stood up and snatched the sheet from him, wrapping it tightly around her lower body. “How can you treat me this way? What have I ever done to you to deserve this? I’ve never hurt anyone in my life.”
    Her words were so heartfelt that Travis lowered his eyes. “I’ve never done anything like this before. Maybe I should just release you, but somehow I can’t. It would be like throwing a wildflower into a snowstorm or, considering the life on these docks, more like a fireplace.” When he looked back at her, his eyes were soft and tender. “I don’t have much of a choice about what I do. I can’t let you go, yet I don’t want to keep you prisoner. Lord! I don’t even own slaves, much less lock up innocent little girls.”
    When he’d finished his speech, he sank heavily into a chair in a corner of the room, and Regan had the oddest feeling that she wanted to comfort him. During the awkward silence she noticed the boxes on top of the big trunk. “Did you bring me a dress?” she asked quietly.
    â€œDid I bring you a dress,” he grinned, seemingly over his momentary distress. Pulling string from one box, he began to unfold a piece of velvet of a color that Regan had never seen before: almost brown, almost red, but with an overall gold sheen to the fabric. As he handed it to her, draping it across her arms, he said, “It’s the color of your hair, not red, not brown, not blonde, but all of them.”
    She looked up at him in surprise. “How…how romantic. I didn’t know you’d—.”
    Laughing, he took the dress from her. “You don’t know anything about me and I know even less about you. You haven’t even told me your name.”
    Hesitating, she ran her hands across the velvet in his arms. All her clothes had always been of the cheapest cloth available. The velvet was the most beautiful fabric she’d ever seen, yet as badly as she wanted to feel it next to her skin, she was cautious. “I’m Regan,” she answered quietly.
    â€œNo last name? Just Regan?”
    â€œThat’s all the name I’ll tell you and if you think you can bribe me with a pretty new dress, you’re wrong,” she said haughtily.
    â€œI don’t use bribes,” he said flatly. “I’ve told you the conditions for your release, and the dress has nothing to do with them.” Tossing the velvet garment onto the bed, he went to the other packages, tearing them open one by one and dumping them on the bed. There was a dress of pale blue silk crepe trimmed with peacock blue ribbons and a nightgown of cotton lawn embroidered with hundreds of tiny pink rosebuds. Two pairs of thin leather slippers, dyed to match the velvet and the blue, tumbled from the last package.
    â€œThey are beautiful, absolutely beautiful,” Regan gasped, holding the silk to her cheek.
    Watching her, Travis was enchanted. She was such a mixture of child and woman—raging one moment, looking like an angry kitten, then changing to a girl of innocence and great charm. As he watched her smile lighting her turquoise eyes,