Alana Read Online Free Page B

turned to Alana.
    “Isn’t this exciting?” she’d asked girlishly.
    Alana had shrugged her shoulders but remained silent.
    “Oh–you have such airs,” Marietta had declared, fanning herself elegantly while she smiled snootily at the other two girls.
    Alana had ignored the remark, but she had not been able to ignore what followed as Marietta started talking about her beau, Clayton Drysdale.
    “Whenever he kisses me, I swear I almost swoon. I–” Marietta paused to raise her fan and cover her face, leaving only her eyes for the others to see. “When he kisses me, I get so…warm inside. Sometimes I think I’ll give in to him right then and there. It’s so hard to wait. I do love him so, and I want him!” Her last words, spoken with such conviction, took Alana by surprise.
    “Want him?” she had asked without realizing she’d spoken aloud.
    Marietta looked slyly at her. The other two girls smiled. “Don’t you want Jason? Don’t you just burn with desire?” she’d asked.
    Alana had become embarrassed, partially because of the vulgar talk but also because she had never experienced any such desires. Then her face flushed, she had stood and glared at Marietta. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she’d stated. Without another word, she had left the room, but not before she’d heard the girls giggling at her.
    Outside, she’d leaned against the closed door, but the wood was a thin barrier to the acid of their words. “Can you believe her?” a voice had said. “She puts on those virginal airs but we all know she’s been living alone with no one watching over her, don’t we? And we know how she trapped Jason Landow, don’t we?”
    Alana had fled then from their false accusations–and from her own inability to understand why she couldn’t truly desire Jason and be in love with him.
    Alana had thought a great deal about that exchange and had often wondered why she had never felt the passions of which Marietta had spoken. It had bothered her for a long time, and she had tried to understand that unknown part of herself. She had let Jason kiss her ardently. She had felt his excitement and passion. Try as she would, she could feel nothing in herself.
    She believed that her own coolness toward Jason existed because she had put all her passions into Riverbend. She accepted this as best she could, while understanding what her duties were to her home and land.
    And now Jason is coming home , she told herself, and she would be his, with or without the passions that husband and wife are supposed to have.
    She closed the locket. After replacing the golden chain about her neck, she shut her eyes for a brief moment. When she did, another picture blossomed fully, startling her with its power. It was the same image that had come to her in the garden–it was Rafe Montgomery.
    Alana shivered, remembering her reaction to him. Again she felt the burning touch of his lips on her hand, and her stomach knotted as it had in the garden.
    Forcefully, she opened her eyes and willed his image away. Alana turned her head and saw the sun had set and the horizon was alive with a hundred varying hues.
    She could smell the jasmine in the air, and the scent of rain grew stronger. Only a few insects welcomed the coming of the night, and Alana, waiting to greet the man she had not seen in over four long years, did her best not to think of anything else.
    ~~~~
    Dusk settled over the river country; Alana watched the shadowy form of a carriage pull up the drive. Her nerves tightened, and her legs threatened to give way.
    Refusing to show any weakness, Alana started toward the steps of the veranda. A feeling of dread overcame her. She grasped the railing and took a deep, preparatory breath. Suddenly a warm, strong hand was holding her arm. Support and strength flowed from it to her.
    “He’ll be in a lot of pain from the ride. He may not even be conscious. He takes a great deal of laudanum for the pain, especially when