Not Quite Married Read Online Free PDF Page A

deepened. “You know the banns for our marriage are to be read tomorrow, yes?”
    Her heart pounded as he mounted the steps and closed the distance between them. She found her back against a post and froze. He dragged his fingertips over her lips, across her cheek, through her tawny curls, and then down the smooth skin of her bare shoulders to her breasts. Then his eyes returned to hers, and he smiled while probing the fear and excitement that burned within her.
    “I must know . . .” He put his hands on her waist and drew her toward him.
    She felt splintered, unable to collect herself enough to respond properly. It was not in her power to resist; the lure of the unknown and the promise of pleasure were too strong. He crushed her to his chest and he deepened the kiss. One hand stole up her side and over her breast, toying with the bare skin above the provocative edge of her bodice. She stiffened and tried to push back in his arms, but stopped at his muffled laugh.
    He raised his head to look at her and gave her a knowing smile.
    She sensed that he knew both the pleasure and the discomfort she was feeling. His hold on her loosened, but she could not bring herself to pull away.
    “Our fathers have planned this marriage.” He searched her face in the pale light, but his own was cloaked in shadow. “But I want to hear from your own lips that you will have me.”
    She had no idea what to say and in the silence he bent his head and claimed her lips again. His mouth left hers to trace the curve of her neck and shoulder. She whimpered as tongues of fire darted through her.
    “Tell me, do you want me?”
    She was reeling, awakened to a wealth of new sensations, filled with longing and confusion . . . incapable of rational thought. But in the end, reason was not required.
    “I do.”
    He stroked the curve of her cheek and her skin glowed under his touch.
    “Your father will be most pleased.”
    Only during the short walk back to the great house did she fully comprehend all that had transpired. He had kissed and caressed her and, in effect, asked her if she were willing to marry him.
    With everything already arranged, would he truly have cast it all aside if she had said no? Why hadn’t she spoken up? Revealed her early opposition to the marriage, or at least her uncertainty about it?
    She stole a glance at his profile as they walked and felt a guilty trill of pleasure at the way her lips tingled with memory. That was why she hadn’t spoken up: that handsome face, those penetrating eyes, the startling discovery of herself as a woman in relation to a man. She wanted to know what it was like to be a bride, a wife, a beloved. She had read too much poetry and too many stories of love and intrigue not to be enticed by the prospect of such things occurring in her own life.
    When they reentered the ballroom and sought out her father, he eagerly halted the musicians to announce that his daughter soon would be wedded to Monsieur Trechaud of Paris. And she looked up to find Raoul smiling down at her with what she hoped was genuine pleasure.
    Four
    THERE WERE ONLY THREE HOURS until dawn when Brien parted from her father and Raoul and climbed the stairs to her rooms. Now that the ordeals of the ball and meeting Raoul were finished, exhaustion weighted her limbs but her mind was still whirring with shape, color, and sound. All she could think about was the storm of interest unleashed by the announcement at the ball of her impending marriage and of the man who stood with her in the center of it.
    Raoul. After their tryst in the garden, he had been a perfect gentleman. Escorting her, smiling at her, and respectfully touching her hand as it rested on his arm. He was every inch the attentive groom-to-be.
    Ella sprang up from a stool by the fire at the sound of Brien’s entrance, and rubbed sleep from her eyes.
    “I saw ’im from th’ stairs—oooh, ’e’s ’andsome as can be!” The little maid took her mistress’s wrap and gloves,