Ravishing in Red Read Online Free PDF

like warm water. She let it touch her heart and calm her agitation. She ignored the peculiarity of the source of the comfort because she so desperately needed its balm.
    He lifted her hand and pried the bloody rag from her fingers. He grabbed a clean cloth. “Help me to bind this, please, so I can dress for our guest.”
    Hands shaking, she tied the cloth around his arm while he held it in place.
    Then he stood. Suddenly his naked chest was right in front of her nose. A stark consciousness of that chest, with the texture of its skin and the way the firelight carved its strength with deep shadows, dazed her for a slow moment.
    She forced her gaze up and caught him watching the way she looked at his body. She felt herself blush hotly. She moved away and turned her back on him so he would not view her embarrassment.
    There had been nothing critical in the way he gazed down at her. Nothing insinuating or leering. His expression had been far more shocking than that.
    She had seen his own fascination, and a silent acknowledgment of some shared secret. Confidence too, as if he knew he was worth looking at, but also curiosity, as if he found her interest less predictable than past women’s.
    She heard him dressing, then the chair being moved again.
    “Miss Kelmsleigh.”
    She forced herself to turn and face him. He appeared all proper now. Not only a shirt and waistcoat covered him, but also the dark gray riding coat that he had removed on first entering. His cravat had been retied quite well considering the pain it must have caused to move his arm.
    “Miss Kelmsleigh, I am sorry that your father is dead. I am sorry for your grief and I am sorry that my pursuit of the truth hurt your family. However, sometime tonight or tomorrow morning the county justice of the peace will be posing some awkward questions. I must ask you to trust me and allow me to answer him for both of us.”
    His reference to her father’s death enflamed the anger that had sent her on this miserable journey. She was grateful for that moment of comfort, but it really changed nothing.
    “You hounded my father to his grave, Lord Sebastian. You and the other members of Parliament who kept talking about that gunpowder. You would not accept any explanations, and insisted that the Board of Ordnance find a scapegoat for you to pillory in public. I think that I would be stupid to trust you.”
    “Your view is understandable. However, I am the only protection that you will have in this. My word as a gentleman, my brother’s title, and my position in the government might spare you.”
    “Spare me? Scandal will find me no matter who you are if word gets out that we were alone here. Your station will only make me more notorious.”
    “That kind of scandal is the least of what you face. In fact, it would be best if the magistrate accepts this as a lovers’ quarrel. Because when he learns that you are Horatio Kelmsleigh’s daughter, he is going to think that you arranged to meet me here, so that you could kill me to avenge your father.”
    She wanted to laugh at his dramatic prediction. Only in a flash she saw the sordid scene from the innkeeper’s eyes again. Lord Sebastian was correct. Her identity would put a different and far worse interpretation on the night’s events.
    The thought left her nauseous. She should never have left the safe obscurity that she had found in Daphne’s house. She should never have rebelled against the unjust turn that life had taken, or been so stupid as to think she could alter the course of fate.
    Lord Sebastian gestured to the bed. “There is no telling when he will arrive. We will arrange it so you can take some rest in privacy, while I contemplate the best way to keep you from being transported for attempted murder.”
     
     
     
     
    H e pulled the bed’s drapes closed with his good arm. Then he lifted the hem on one side and pushed it over the bed halfway to create a narrow but serviceable tunnel of privacy for her.
    “Get