Sweet Deception Read Online Free PDF Page B

Pygmy, for God’s sake. Pygmy! Where had his control gone?
    It was that damnable scent, he decided. Lavender mingled with something more…earthy. He always had preferred earthy. Or perhaps it was that even her shapeless overcoat couldn’t hide the curve of her hips or her surprisingly rounded bosom. Or maybe it was the way she moved with him, the backs of her thighs rolling with the motion of the horse, flexing and relaxing against him much as they would if she were—
    Derick swallowed, hard. He’d never had a woman across his lap on horseback before, hadn’t known how alluring it could be. That must be it. Not the woman herself.
    He had to find a way of distracting himself from his inconvenient awareness of her softness nestled so close to his…hardness.
    “So, tell me about this maid and why you are so certain she is in trouble,” he tossed out.
    As Emma shifted in his lap to look at him, her overcoat gapped, revealing a glimpse of the swell of her bosom. Dear God. Perhaps he should have left well enough alone.
    “‘This maid’ has a name, and it’s Molly,” Emma said, chastening him. She waited until he’d nodded his acknowledgment. “Molly grew up at Aveline Castle. Her entire family lives in upper Derbyshire.”
    Derick huffed. “Sometimes family is precisely the reason to leave a place and never look back.”
    Emma eyed him with a quizzical frown. “Not in this case. Molly adores her family. She is particularly close to
her
mother.”
    Why had he said such a revealing thing? Perhaps it was a good thing he’d given up espionage when he had. Perhaps he was losing his knack. Or perhaps Pygmy just knocked him off balance. He cleared his throat, ignoring the not-so-veiled curiosity in Emma’s tone even as he wondered at the note of censure. “She may have met a young man they didn’t approve of.”
    Emma pursed her lips as if both annoyed at his dodging her and condemning him for even mentioning the possibility. “No. She’s engaged to be married in a few weeks.” She told him about the girl’s routine, her movements of the past few days, of her own discussions with the maid’s parents, her affianced, and her friends. Everything about the maid’s life seemed…perfect. Normal. Happy, even.
    “Of course, I checked with the local inns and the mail coach. But Molly is as reliable as they come. She wouldn’t have just run off. Besides, none of her clothes or personal effects are missing.”
    Emma made a convincing case. He now had to admit that the poor maid
may
have met with an accident. He must have sounded like a total ass, which had been his intention, of course. And yet, somehow, it bothered him now.
    “Detail the search for me up to this point,” he said.
    Emma raised a brow.
    “Humor me.”
    She let out an aggrieved sigh. “We started with the assumption that she’d gone for an early walk and somehow injured herself,” she began. Emma spoke of how she’d calculated the most likely search radius, taking into account timing and walking speed of both man andbeast, the topography of the area, and a number of other variables that had near made his mind spin. He was impressed. He’d recognized, even when they were children, that her odd nature hid an unusual brightness. But Pygmy wasn’t just intelligent—she was bloody brilliant.
    No amount of brilliance was going to find the poor maid tonight, however. The calls of other searchers faded away, and the last gasps of sunlight filtered through the trees in foggy rays.
    Emma sat tense on his lap. Derick felt her frustration rolling off of her in waves, and now shared it. Yet as much as he expected Emma to fight him, for her safety’s sake he was going to have to insist that they return to the castle and start again in the morning.
    “Emma, we have to turn back.”
    She shook her head vehemently. “But Molly,” she said. “Her poor parents…No one should have to worry about someone they care about, to wonder where they are, what happened