Malia Martin Read Online Free PDF

introduced them. The woman looked as if she had just seen the devil himself come creeping from the wagon.
    “I brought you a basket, Mrs. Leland,” Lady Farnsworth said quickly. She shoved the article into the woman’s hands.
    The Widow Leland looked completely flummoxed. Her beady dark eyes peered from Lady Farnsworth to him, then down to the basket. She reached for the edge of the lace-edged covering.
    “No!” Lady Farnsworth grabbed Mrs. Leland’s hand and they stood there for a moment. “My dear, Mrs. Leland.” Lady Farnsworth kissed the woman’s fingers. “It would embarrass me so to watch you open my gift. We will just be on our way now.”
    As a young boy, James had accompanied his mother as she gave baskets to the poor. She most certainly hadn’t kissed anyone’s hand. And she had usually chatted a while, taken tea.
    Lady Farnsworth turned a wide smile upon James as the Widow Leland ran back into her cottage as fast as her squat legs would take her, and all of his thoughts just flitted right out of his head.
    That smile must have gotten Lady Farnsworth anything she wanted as a child, as a wife, as well. She had sweet little white teeth that made one want to explore them with one’s tongue.
    “Well, that was lovely,” she said airily, and held out her arm for James to help her up. He cupped his fingers under her dainty elbow, took in a deep, lavender-scented breath of her, and helped her to her seat.
    Perhaps part of her allure was the fact that she seemed a bit off kilter. One moment she acted nervous and flighty, the next she took charge like a flint-eyed admiral.
    James boosted himself up to sit next to the mystifying Lady Farnsworth. He glanced at her, and realized that he really could not do that anymore. She was chewing at her bottom lip, and it nearly made him run them off the road. He was certainly not acting like himself.
    Perhaps he had been drugged.
    James closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head, and tried to regain his composure. He could remember waking up that very morning at the inn where he had slept, putting on his breeches and coat, staring at himself in the mirror. What had happened to that stalwart focused captain of only a few hours ago?
    He had never in his life been so out of control of a situation. And he had led men into battle, for the love of God.
    Poor, dear, Captain Ashley. Prudence glanced at the man over her teacup. She could feel the energy that exuded from him; it seemed to bounce off the walls. He was going mad with inactivity.
    It was very bad of her to do this to him. “Do go on, Mrs. Redding,” Pru urged the woman sitting across from her when that woman deigned to take a breath.
    “Oh, of course, I intend to, Lady Farnsworth, for I was much horrified at the turn of events after Paul, the butcher’s son, tried to cheat me out of a full quarter pound of lamb,” and she was off again.
    Poor Captain Ashley.
    He shifted in his seat, his gaze roving the room. And then his gray eyes caught her watching him. For a moment, he just stared, like no one had ever stared at her before in her life. A tremor raced along her spine, and heat suffused her body as if the temperature in the room had just risen a good twenty degrees.
    The reaction stunned her, and frightened her, for she had never felt anything like it before. She blinked just as Captain Ashley jerked his head so that they were no longer in each other’s line of vision. Pru’s teacup clanked against the saucer as she placed it quickly on the little table at her side.
    This attraction business was rather a hard thing to get used to.
    Captain Ashley stood suddenly, and she jumped. Leslie did not seem to notice, for her litany continued nonstop. Ah, Leslie Redding was good at this. The captain prowled the room, his presence so commanding it was hard to believe that Leslie did not even glance at him.
    He stopped before a window, pulling aside the drapes with a large brown hand. She was sure that she had never