The Heiress Bride Read Online Free PDF

money.”
    â€œI don’t want a protector, if by that you mean you would take me on as a mistress.”
    â€œYes,” he said slowly, fascinated now. “That is what I meant.”
    â€œI can’t be a mistress. Even if I wanted to be, it wouldn’t help you. Surely my brother wouldn’t release my dowry if you didn’t wed me. I suspect he wouldn’t be pleased if I did become your mistress. He is very old-fashioned about some things.”
    â€œThen why are you doing this? Pray, tell me. Did one of my benighted friends put you up to this? Are you the mistress of Lord Brassley? Or Henry Tompkins? Or Lord Clinton?”
    â€œOh no, no one put me up to anything.”
    â€œNot everyone likes the fact that I’m a Scot. Even though I went to school with a good many of the men here in London, they think it just fine to drink with me and sport with me, but not for me to wed their sisters.”
    â€œI think you could be a Moroccan and I would still feel as I do.”
    He could but stare at her. The soft blue feather of her riding hat—a ridiculously small confection of nonsense—curled about her face, framing it charmingly. Her riding habit, a darker blue, darker than her eyes, he saw, fit her to perfection, and it wasn’t flirtatious, that habit, no, it was stylish and showed off her high breasts and narrow waist and . . . He cursed, fluently and low.
    â€œYou sound just like my brothers, but usually they’re laughing before they get to the end of their curses.”
    He started to say something but realized that she was staring at his mouth. No, she couldn’t be a lady. She was a damned jest, paid for by one of his friends. “Enough!” he bellowed. “This is all an act, it has to be. You can’t want to marry me, just like that, and proceed to announce it in the most brazen way imaginable!” He turned suddenly in his saddle and jerked her against him. He pulled her out of her sidesaddle and over his thighs. He heldher still until both horses quieted, not that he had to do anything, because she didn’t fight him, not at all. She immediately pressed her breasts against him. No, she couldn’t be a lady, no way in hell.
    He forced her against his left arm and lifted her chin with his gloved fingertips. He kissed her hard, his tongue probing against her closed lips. He raised his head, anger in his voice. “Damn you, open your mouth like you’re supposed to.”
    â€œAll right,” she said, and opened her mouth.
    At the sight of her open mouth, Colin couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “Bloody hell, you look like you’re about to sing an opera like that vile soprano from Milan. Oh, damnation!” He set her again onto Fanny’s back. Fanny, displeased, pranced to the side, but Sinjun, even a Sinjun who was nearly incoherent with pleasure and excitement and amusement, managed to bring her easily under control.
    â€œAll right. I will accept that you are a lady. I will . . . no, I cannot accept that you saw me at the Portmaines’ ball and decided you wanted to marry me.”
    â€œWell, I wasn’t precisely certain I wanted to marry you then, at that moment, just that I thought I could look at you for the rest of my life.”
    He was disarmed immediately. “Before I see you again—if I see you again—I would that you cloak yourself in a bit of guile. Not a tremendous amount, mind you, but enough so that you don’t leave me slack-jawed, with nothing to say when you announce something utterly outrageous.”
    â€œI’ll try,” Sinjun said. She looked away from him for a moment, across the wide expanse of thick green grass, to the riding trails that intersected the park. “Do you think perhaps I could be maybe pretty enough for you? Oh, I know all the other about toothsomeness was just a jest. I wouldn’twant you to be ashamed of me, to be embarrassed