Only Marriage Will Do Read Online Free PDF Page B

necessary.
    They lay in bed together, naked though she did not feel embarrassed. Amiable cupped her head, guided her lips to his. Their mouths met, a sweetness of soft lips and tongues exploring tenderly. No haste. They had all the time they needed. She tugged his ribbon and his hair flowed free around his shoulders, like a pagan Norse god come to life at her touch. He pressed her down into the bed. His pleasantly heavy weight held her, cherished her. Raining kisses from her mouth, to her throat, to shoulder, to breast, he drove her mad with his silky lips. She moaned with delight and moved her hips against the hardness that urged itself between her legs. Seeking, prodding, parting her thighs…
    A rough hand seized her, shook her. Philippe. Philippe had come to take her away. To make her his wife instead.
    “No! No! I hate you, Philippe. I will never be yours,” she screamed with the force of a gale wind.
    Juliet jerked awake, the glare of the afternoon sun blinding her. She blinked and squinted.
    “Lady Juliet? My lady?” Glynis peered at her from the seat opposite, edging toward the corner. Her small hand rested tentatively on Juliet’s forearm. “Are you all right?”
    She nodded, though a slick cold sweat trickled down her neck despite the heat of the closed carriage.
    “You gave me such a fright. You must have been having a bad dream, my lady. About… him . That awful Frenchman. You began to moan and twitch and when I shook you to wake you up, you screamed, ‘No, no, Philippe.’ He is still a cruel man, my lady. I am glad you are now out of his reach.”
    “Thank you, Glynis. Yes, I had an awful dream about Vicomte St. Cyr. I’m glad you awakened me.” Praise God she had said nothing worse. Nothing about Amiable. Her cheeks heated and she gave thanks for the fading light.
    The remembrance of the beginning of her vivid dream stayed with her the rest of the afternoon—the space between her thighs aching for Amiable’s touch—until the carriage finally swept into the yard of the White Hart Inn in St. Albans, the first leg of her journey completed.
    * * * *
    The clock on the mantle chimed the quarter hour. After one o’clock in the morning and, despite the excitement of the day, her escape from London, her afternoon nap and its disturbing dream, Juliet still couldn’t sleep.
    After almost an hour of tossing and turning in her wretched bed, she’d sent Glynis to the kitchen to see if they had kept hot water over the fire. Perhaps a bath would soothe her enough to make sleep possible. Had she brought her lavender oil? So calming. Surely that would help.
    She slipped on her robe and padded to her traveling trunk at the end of the bed. She lifted the lid and pulled out the box that held her soaps and perfumes. As she checked the vials, a tentative knock sounded at the door.
    “Come in, Glynis.” She uncapped a vial and sniffed the contents. Jasmine. No. Not for the bath.
    The door opened.
    “Are they bringing the tub? I think the lavender oil will help me relax.”
    “Very good, my lady.” The deep masculine voice froze her, vial in hand.
    Her head snapped up.
    A towering male figure stood shadowed in the doorway.
    Dear God, Philippe had found her.
    “Or is it Mrs. Dawson perhaps?”
    No accent. He was not Philippe. A hired thug sent to kidnap her?
    Strength drained away. She dropped the box and whirled around, seeking a way out of the room that suddenly seemed to close in on her.
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    Bottles crashed and the reek of jasmine filled the room. Juliet shrieked and stumbled back behind the bed. Trapped. Easy prey.
    The man raced toward her, calling out something she couldn’t hear for the blood pounding in her ears. The candle he carried blew out. He cursed and reached for her.
    “Nooo! Get away. Don’t touch me.” Slapping at his hands, she twisted to avoid him and landed with a thud, flat on her back. Air rushed out of her lungs.
    He sped around the end of the bed.
    She struggled to