This Perfect Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page A

there were many Scots sympathetic to the colonists’ plight. Trade and communication between us did not cease because of an embargo.”
    â€œUs? I am English, Christel. The Carrick title is an English patent given to one of my ancestors two hundred years ago for successfully quelling a Scottish rebellion and hanging all its leaders. Had I known she was in league with Leighton and you, I would have put a stop to it.”
    The color seemed to drain from her face. “I—”
    â€œYou think I did not know my own brother worked with your uncle against me in the war?” He folded the letter, little caring that his voice was sharp. “Saundra may have kept in contact with you, I do not know. But if the individual who sent this letter knew anything about me, she would have known that hell would freeze over before I would ever ask a colonial urchin to be governess to my daughter.”
    â€œI beg your pardon.”
    â€œPlease do. Someone should. You have a habit of popping in and out of my life like a hand full of mist. You present me with a letter mailed from a woman who has been dead sixteen months. And I should not consider this a joke?”
    Her temper flashed hotly. “Acquit me, my lord. Whatever I have done to make you angry, I apologize. But if I have earned your animosity, then let it be for a sin I have actually committed.”
    The ship lurched. Bentwell had cast off the mooring lines. Knowing what was about to come, Camden braced his hand against the timber stretching across the ceiling as the ship climbed and dropped. Despite his lame leg, he rode the ship’s movement as years of experience and practice supplanted the effects of the injury on the psyche. Miss Douglas attempted to catch her balance on the desk and missed. He hooked his arm around her waist and kept her from tumbling to the floor. He heard her breath catch as he brought her hard against him.
    Beneath the layers of homespun, her skin was warm, her curves soft. Despite the pungent scent of her clothes, he held her tightly braced against him. There was nothing about her that should have intrigued him, yet he found his interest piqued despite himself.
    â€œWhat sins have you committed since our last meeting, Miss Douglas?”
    Shoving away from him, she captured his gaze. “I have not murdered you. Yet,” she said, riding the pitch of the ship with more ease. “And for your information, I never considered for an instant that I was not qualified to be a governess.” A calm seemed to settle over her, banishing all timidity. “My grandmother saw to that part of my education before . . . before I left Scotland.”
    Camden set his teeth and silently cursed himself. What was wrong with him? For a moment, all he could grasp was that she had made a dangerous trip halfway across the world alone. She could have been killed and no one would ever have known her fate.
    He also knew that she had already endured hell coming from the war-torn Tidewater region in Virginia. He was no novice when it came to understanding what war did to people.
    Despite her bravado, she was very much a person now in exile.
    Much as he was.
    Forcing his attention back to the letter, he refolded it as his gaze fell on the dog. He had forgotten the mutt was present.
    â€œHe is mine,” she said defensively, kneeling beside the natty red and brown spotted dog as if she would protect it from being thrown into the Thames.
    He had never had pets, and when he was a boy, he couldn’t understand his own grandmother’s doting over a hairy, yapping lap dog that had never missed an occasion to bite him.
    â€œI am not going to toss either of you overboard, Christel.” Pocketing the letter, he looked past her out the stern gallery window into a dim, snowy morn. “When was the last time you ate something?”
    â€œYesterday morning.”
    He turned and strode across the room to the adjoining chamber. The cold