The Accidental Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

… but the sleep thing, well, you’re keeping me waiting on that one.
    Only once or twice in their relatively brief relationship had John ever managed to sleep in the same room as her, never mind the same bed. He claimed he couldn’t fall asleep in another person’s presence, but, as yet, hadn’t fully explained why that was.
    Was it something to do with the car crash he’d been in,all those years ago? He’d fallen asleep as the passenger in the car, believing that Clara, his lover of the time, was fit to drive home from a party. She’d told him she hadn’t been drinking, and he’d accepted that as the truth, but hadn’t thought to ask her whether she’d taken any drugs.
    I bet you think if you’d stayed awake, you could’ve snatched the wheel at the last moment, don’t you?
    Perhaps that was the root of it? His psyche kept him awake and on his guard, lest some disaster should occur, like the one that had led Clara to pile their car into another, killing a woman and seriously injuring her daughter. The fact that the injured daughter, Rose, had long since forgiven John for his involvement, and had even become a good friend of his, made no difference.
He
couldn’t forgive himself.
    Lizzie studied John from beneath her eyelashes, adoring the elegance of his profile, and the way he adorably nibbled at his lower lip when he was concentrating. There was probably nothing he could have done if he’d been awake that night, and he couldn’t be blamed for believing the word of the woman he’d loved. Lizzie wondered if, now, he would believe her in the same situation. Or had Clara bolloxed up his complete trust in her sex for ever? Perhaps that was why he was still holding back and, in this one thing, would not confide in her?
    ‘Go to sleep, Lizzie. It’s late, and you’ve had a busy night.’ Turning to her, he winked and flicked a glance at her rump beneath the pale flower-sprigged cotton that had replaced the peach satin too beautiful to spoil with sticky balm.
    She gave him a ‘what about you’ look.
    ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve a few more things I want tokeep tabs on, but I will try soon. Promise. If you’re already sleeping, it might be easier for me to nod off, you know.’ He reached out and flicked a few strands of her hair that had fallen across her chin out of the way. Then he kissed her, softly, gently. ‘If I know you’re lying there waiting for me to fall asleep, it’ll only make it more difficult.’
    ‘Sorry, boss.’ She was feeling tired, actually. There was nothing like being spanked, then shagged, twice, to make you drowsy.
    ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for, love. It’s me that’s the freak.’
    ‘You’re not a freak,’ she protested, loving he way he smoothed her hair, as if she were their little cat Alice, who was at home at Dalethwaite Manor, being cared for by the efficient and irreplaceable Thursgoods. Alice purred like a high-powered motorboat when she was stroked, and Lizzie felt like doing the same.
    ‘Go to sleep, sweetheart,’ he urged again, and almost as if her subconscious was more obedient than her conscious mind, she felt herself slipping.
    Even if he didn’t sleep himself, his beloved presence at her side helped her to let go and bid adieu to the waking world.
    ‘John …’ she breathed, and then she was gone.

2
Dark Knight of the Soul
    Lizzie shot up in bed, awake in a flash, and gasped. Somehow she’d ended on her back, and shooting straight up into a sitting position induced a twinge in her bum, a little echo of the spanking that had eluded the apothecary balm and even John’s best efforts to pull his strokes.
    What had woken her so abruptly? She looked around the room. No John. Despite her resolve to be sensible, her heart ached that he wasn’t there, fast asleep beside her. A bit of breeze had come up, and the long voile curtains at the window leading to the balcony were flapping slightly. Maybe that was what had reached into her sleep?
    But no,