Seize the Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

bunch of blockheaded bureaucrats, Sheridan looked upon the sentiment with some skepticism.
    He flipped back and paused at the flyleaf. In a careful hand, Miss St Leger had written something in Latin. Since Sheridan's formal schooling had ended at the age of ten, he could only frown at it and hum-hum and look wise, not wishing to tarnish her image of hire, which was clearly exalted and ought to be taken advantage of before the new wore off.
    "Thank you," he said, looking up at her. "I'll treasure this."
    Her lips parted slightly. She managed to smile without smiling, her serious face ashine with pleasure—real pleasure, which was something he recognized only because he'd never seen it before, not on any of the hundreds of faces which had smirked vainly or proudly or coyly at him as he played out his hero farce.
    It was Sheridan who looked away, feeling unexpectedly awkward. She was outlandish and yet curiously lovely in her sparrowish, humble way. It made him uncomfortable. He was partial to beautiful women; he liked prettiness as well as the next man. But this was something different. Something that touched him in obscure and half-forgotten places. In his soul, he might have said, if he'd thought he still had one to stir.
    Which he didn't, as he proved to himself by lowering his eyelids and enjoying the deliberate and easy kindling of more familiar sensations. Her dress, cut in a modish horizontal line across her bosom, revealed quite enough to assure him that nothing artificial amplified the swell of her breasts. The straight neckline made an inviting path, starting low on her shoulders and crossing the opulent expanse of skin at a point that on most females would have been perfectly modest, but which on Miss St Leger clearly showed the shadowy prelude to a luxurious cleavage.
    He shifted the blanket a little to hide his interest, which was rather more than intellectual, and bought some time by pouring for them both. Undecided on the best approach to achieving a considerably closer acquaintance, he found himself sitting next to her and sipping like a schoolboy at a charity tea.
    Her motives still baffled him. It was beginning to look unlikely that Outraged Papa would appear. Possibly she was going to ask Sheridan for money for Distressed Needlewomen or something, but if so, she was taking her sweet time about it. He looked at her slantwise and saw her chew her lower lip, obviously working herself up to the point.
    He sipped again and waited to see what it was. Watching her face, rolling sweetness on his tongue, savoring both after months of forced abstinence from every civilized pleasure, he slowly allowed himself to slide into tranquil sensuality. He appreciated simply existing, enjoying the cool air on his face and the warmth the blankets radiated back from his bare skin, the feel of his spine pressed up to the solid horsehair couch. His career had taught him one true thing amid the folly—there were few enough moments of peace in life. He took this one and treasured it with sincere gratitude, which was as close to religion as he came these days.
    Miss St Leger stopped chewing her lip. She seemed content with the silence, sitting with the mute patience of a dog or a cat, staring pensively into the struggling fire. Her lowered profile emphasized her chubby chin, creating a picture that Sheridan found genuine and vulnerable to the point of painfulness. She should have known better than to display her little faults so conspicuously; any other woman he'd ever met would have. Spinsters whose beauty had gone to wattle still had the presence of mind to preen and maneuver themselves into presenting their best angle to a new acquaintance. He wondered if she had ever set out to seduce a man before.
    He caught himself in that thought. Vain bastard he'd become, with all the misplaced glory and its agreeable effect on females—but for God's sake, what else could she possibly want from him? To call like this, alone,