Humbled Read Online Free Page A

him.
    “Did you think I begged in the village center?”
    She had the grace to flush, pushing off his lap to stand. He hid his disappointment by jumping to his feet and putting out the fire.
    “We should start walking again.”
    “As you say.”
    “If we meet anyone, you are my wife, Justine Armand. I have your papers. Can you speak like a blacksmith’s wife?”
    “I can try,” she said, trying to speak like a peasant.
    “Try harder,” he said drily, picking up the satchel he’d had the foresight to pack before he had run to Château de Gramont to save Corinne. In it he had the few francs he owned, the papers for himself and his dead wife, a tin cup, a cloak and flint. He handed Corinne the cup. “Go back to the stream and drink your fill before we depart.”
    He watched her back as she departed, shaking his head. Irritation with her as a symbol of what the citizens of France were fighting against warred with the obligation to repay his debt. That, after all, was the only reason he would willingly subject himself to her company.
    Except he knew that was a lie. He already liked the little aristocrat, as fascinated by her as he had been all those years ago at his execution.
    She impressed him by walking all afternoon and halfway through the night without complaint. When they stopped at last, however, she stomped her feet when he refused to build a fire.
    “It will call attention to us, which we cannot afford. It is summer—you cannot be so cold you require a fire.”
    “I am freezing,” she insisted. “I’m not accustomed to walking for miles on end, nor to sleeping on the ground. All this time I imagined the nice warm fire you would make us when we stopped.”
    “I’m sorry to disappoint, ma chère .” He patted the ground beside him cavalierly. “You may have my cloak, and if you lie beside me, I will keep you warm. I promise I will not molest you in any way.”
    She eyed him warily, her lower lip protruding. “If you do, I will cut out your heart.”
    He grinned. “Will you? Now I wish to tempt you, just to see you try.”
    “I hate you,” she sulked, sinking to the ground beside him.
    He lay on his side, his head on his arm. “You may use my arm for a pillow,” he offered.
    She glowered at his arm, but gingerly lowered her head to rest upon it, her back to his front.
    “Can you feel my warmth?”
    She inched back a little, until her body almost touched his. “Yes,” she murmured.
    They lay silently together and he thought she would fall immediately to sleep, but instead she said, “My feet hurt. And my knees ache. And—” she stopped herself.
    He smiled, imagining she might be thinking of her backside.
    Indeed, she offered, “I had not been switched before.”
    “It is horrible, isn’t it?” he said with genuine sympathy. “I would not have chosen a switch to punish you, except it is silent and I did not wish any passersby to hear us.”
    “I will never forgive you for it.”
    “No? I think you already have.”
    “No. Never. And I shall never concede you are my master.”
    He moved without thinking, as if Corinne were his wife, someone he had the right to tease. Pulling her to her back, he pinned her wrists above her head, straddling her waist. She bucked against him, and he saw real fear on her face, though her hips lifted to roll against his in an undulating fashion.
    He grinned to ease her worries. “Shall I cut another switch and test your resolve?”
    She wriggled harder against his grip. “Get… off… me!”
    “Hmm? Shall I? I cannot imagine you would last too long before you would call me anything I demanded, especially on an already raw derrière.”
    She tossed her head from side to side, straining against his hold, a deep flush across her neck visible even in moonlight. She caught the amusement in his eyes. “You are enjoying yourself.”
    “Just a little.”
    “The fault is not mine.”
    “What fault?”
    “Being born noble .”
    He relaxed his grip in a rush of