To Have and to Hold Read Online Free PDF Page B

right so he could keep an eye on her—or catch her if she started to slide under the table. As each course was served, she stared at it for a moment, as though assuring herself it was really food, and then consumed minute bites with great care. The fillet was tough. Without asking, Sebastian took her plate from her, cut the meat into small pieces, and handed it back, "Thank you," she murmured, disconcerted. He kept topping her wineglass, but she barely touched it; she scrutinized it as she had the food, holding the glass in front of the candle, taking an occasional sip, inhaling the bouquet. She kept her eyes down, so he could only imagine what she was thinking. The less she revealed, the more he wanted to know about her.
    By meal's end, she was a new woman. Her cheeks had natural color, and her lips weren't set in the straight, grim line; she'd even relaxed enough to let her shoulders sink against the back of her chair. Studying her over his glass, Sebastian smiled to himself, thinking she had a little of the look of a woman after sex: tired but satisfied.
    "We'll have that in the drawing room," he informed a maid who came with the coffeepot on a tray. "Mrs. Wade?" Wordless, they walked together out of the dining room into the hall. All her movements and gestures were scaled down, designed to attract the least amount of attention. It was self-deprecation refined to an art form. He thought of nuns again. Silent as a cool draft, Mrs. Wade glided rather than walked, the movement of her legs barely discernible. As if the goal were to go from point A to point B without disturbing the air.
    In the drab drawing room, someone had lit a fire in the fireplace. He glanced around at the faded curtains and thin carpets, the dingy, outdated furniture. Everything in the room, the whole house, needed refurbishing, but so far he hadn't been able to work up enough energy or enthusiasm for the task. The sole domestic improvement he'd commissioned was a second-floor bathroom, complete with bronze tub and gold fixtures, cast by Chevalier and shipped over from Paris. Lili had loved it.
    The new housekeeper was standing with her head bowed, hands folded at her waist, evidently waiting for him to sit down first.
    "Mrs. Wade, you have an extremely annoying mannerism. You won't look at me, even when I'm speaking to you. How did you come by it, and how do you propose to get rid of it?"
    She was stunned. In her agitation, she looked away—then quickly back, remembering herself. "I beg your pardon," she blurted, bunking fast, keeping her silver eyes wide on him with an obvious effort. "I didn't intend any disrespect. I believe it's a—a habit, my lord, nothing more."
    "A habit."
    "Yes. Acquiredin prison. We—were not allowed to look at the wardens, my lord. Or indeed, at each other. It was against the rules."
    He could hardly believe it. "Why?" he demanded, irrationally angry with her.
    Some emotion clouded her luminous eyes for a second, then disappeared. "Because—because—I don't know why! It was part of the punishment."
    They looked at each other in mutual wonder and disgust, and for those few seconds, Sebastian saw her as a person, an equal, not just a woman he was planning to seduce.
    Then the maid came in with the coffee. He told Mrs. Wade to sit down on the sofa in front of the fireplace, and she obeyed with a soft-spoken, "Yes, my lord." He couldn't imagine her issuing orders to anyone, but that was her lookout now. He sat beside her, angling his body to face her. She sipped her coffee the way she'd drunk her wine: experimentally, as if she weren't quite sure what it was. Out of the silence he heard himself ask, "What was it like in prison?" It wasn't at all what he'd meant to say.
    Her face turned haggard while he watched. She looked old again. Her mouth worked, but she couldn't get any words out. Finally she bowed her head, defeated.
    As if he'd never asked the question, he began to tell her about her housekeeping duties. There were