Awaiting the Moon Read Online Free Page A

out of a room and strode down the hall toward them.
    Elizabeth, her nerves jangled by a difficult day, gasped, the sighing sound echoing up through the staircase.
    “It is merely my brother, Nikolas,” Gräfin von Wolfram said, a tone of reproof in her hard voice. She cast Elizabeth an assessing look. “Nikolas,” she said, raising her voice, “we have here our Tante Katrina and new tutor arrived.”
    The man, dressed in black breeches, black boots, and with a white silk shirt stretched taut over muscular shoulders and arms, looked up and stopped in front of them. His unsmiling face was ruddy, his lips compressed into a single hard line. His eyes were the dark gray of an angry autumn sky, and Elizabeth thought she had never seen such a handsome man in her life.
    But it was more than mere good looks that made him attractive. He charged the air about them as a storm does, with electricity, and she felt the same exhilaration, the same anxiety mixed with excitement as she had as a child on the beach, watching a storm approach from sea.
    This man was her new employer, the one she would have to impress with her skill and awe with her erudition. And she would have to do all that while ignoring the way he made her heart pound and palms sweat.
    How awful.

Chapter 2

    FRAU LIEBNER, during their journey to Germany, had described Nikolas von Wolfram as slim and studious, retiring, diffident. Unless the lady’s memory was faulty, he had transformed in the years his aunt had been away from a boy into a man of unusual force of character and presence.
    His steady gaze locked with Elizabeth’s and she could not stop staring, aware that her expression could be seen as unbecoming and forward, but unable to look elsewhere. She could feel the confusion mantling her cheeks with pink, the heat spreading through her body.
    Tall and broad shouldered, a lock of raven black hair falling over his high forehead, he was casually dressed, his white shirt loose at the neck, exposing a shocking V of dark hair on a bare chest, the skin pale as alabaster. All of this she had taken in before their eyes met. She had the odd feeling that he had made a rapid assessment of her, too, his gaze traveling her body in the few seconds it took to meet in the hall. He was the first to break their connection, though, as he heeded his sister’s abrupt repetition of his name and turned to his aunt. “Tante Katrina, welcome home.”
    “You have changed, Nikolas,” Frau Liebner said with a wry twist to her lips. “I left and you were a boy, but now… I would not have known you.”
    He took her hand and squeezed. “Circumstances have made me who I am.” He then turned his attention back to Elizabeth and held out his hand.
    She offered her own, but instead of shaking it he bowed and brought it to his lips. It was the merest whisper of a moment, but she felt the warmth of his breath on her naked skin and sighed. He stood, still holding her hand, and their gazes locked again; she saw confusion in his gray eyes, or was that just the mirror of her own emotions? Moments passed.
    The Gräfin cleared her throat, breaking the silence. “I was about to show Miss Stanwycke to her chamber, brother, as she is undoubtedly exhausted after such a journey, and Tante Katrina, too, of course.”
    He released Elizabeth’s hand and bowed. “Of course. Excuse me, and excuse my attire, ladies,” he said, mopping his damp brow with a cloth he had tucked in his waistband. “Cesare and I—Cesare Vitali is my secretary, Miss Stanwycke— have just been fencing. It is a habit of ours this time of day, for exercise in this frigid season is vital for the spirit and body.”
    Gräfin von Wolfram, Elizabeth noted, gazed at him and raised her eyebrows. There was some silent communication between brother and sister, but it ended abruptly when the Graf bowed once more and excused himself, heading up the stairs ahead of them, bounding two steps at a time, muscles flexing and bunching under the