My Fallen Angel Read Online Free

a candle, you dolt.”
    “Yes, but this smells like an
extinguished
candle.”
    There was a snort. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”
    “But I tell you, I
heard
something.”
    “Then by all means, feel free to investigate. I for one am going back to my bed.”
    “Wait.” There was the hurried sound of footsteps. “I refuse to walk through these hallways alone.”
    Lucy heard the door close and breathed a sigh of relief. “I think they’re gone.”
    She shifted a little; her body rubbed up against his. She heard a gasp, and wondered if she’d stepped on him again. She tried to push past him, her breasts sliding upagainst his arm. Her cheeks stung with embarrassment. She heard him gasp again, then her thoughts fled like petals on a breeze when she felt a hand gently caress her side. Strangely, she didn’t move away. She
should
move away. It was terribly disloyal to dear Harry to allow a man to touch her thus. Still, Mr. Wolf’s touch made her feel so strange, like when she’d plunged off the roof of the barn and into that haystack, just before she’d stepped on the pitchfork. It was a funny sort of feeling, right in the pit of her stomach, as if … as if she couldn’t breathe.
    She stiffened when his hand trailed up her side, skirted around her breasts, traipsed along her collarbone, and up the side of her neck to halt at long last on her jaw. She felt him shift, realized he was going to kiss her, realized that she should tell him to stop, but then she felt the gentle caress of his breath on her cheek, and then … and then …
    Heaven.
    It was a kiss so soft, yet so … so
amazing,
Lucy was too stunned to move. Her legs weakened. She felt Garrick try to catch her wilting body, but they were so cramped in the narrow confines of the closet they could barely move. He grunted in frustration, and without removing his lips from hers, pushed past some petticoats and stepped from the closet, leaving her behind. It worked out perfectly, for their two heads were on level.
    Lucy sighed in contentment, but then he did something so unexpected, so startling, she stiffened in protest. Still he continued to pull her shirt from the waistline of her breeches. She pulled her lips away, but he startedtrailing kisses down the side of her neck instead. That left her momentarily breathless and so she closed her eyes, but then he leaned back and before she knew what he was about, he touched her breast.
    She pushed him away in shock.
    He flew over backward like Hyperion falling from heaven.
    And downstairs two gazes shot to the ceiling.
    “Now, you tell me that weren’t nothin’,” one footman said to the other.

3

    “What
do you
think
you’re
doing!”
    Garrick didn’t want to open his eyes. Unfortunately, the voice which had spoken sounded all too familiar. Arlan Horatio Shuck, his “Heavenly Guidance Counselor.” He opened one eye, then wished he hadn’t. The white-robed figure staring back at him looked furious—livid, really. His wings beat back and forth like a hawk’s hovering over its prey. The motion caused the papers on his desk to rustle. One of his feathers came loose and drifted to the white tiled floor.
    “You’ve been alone with Miss Hartford for a half hour,” he ranted, raising his hands in the air.
“A half hour,
and
already
you’ve nearly broken your vow. What? Do you
want
to go to hell?”
    Garrick stared at Arlan warily. Arlan stared right back. The silence stretched on, the only sound the agitated flapping of Arlan’s wings as they brushed against the room’s walls, a room where everything was white: the desk, the ceiling, Arlan’s hair. It was like beingtrapped in the middle of a blizzard. It gave Garrick a headache.
    “Well,
say
something,” the angel demanded.
    “This is not a fair test.”
    “Oh.” The angel’s thin lips spread into a grimace, exposing teeth that would be better suited on a horse; his blue eyes narrowed into a squint. “Oh, oh, oh, I get it.” He looked toward