Ravished by the Rake Read Online Free Page B

to stand up or does your stubborn male pride preclude that as well?’
    When he moved, he moved fast and with grace. His language was vivid, although mostly incomprehensible,but the viscount got his good leg under him and stood up in one fluid movement, ignoring her hand. ‘There is a lot of blood on your breeches now,’ she observed. She had never been so close to quite this much gore before but, by some miracle, she did not feel faint. Probably she was too cross. And aroused—she could not ignore that humiliating fact. She had wanted him then, eight years ago when he had been a youth. Now she felt sharp desire for the man he had become. She was grown, too; she could resist her own weaknesses.
    ‘Damn.’ He held out a hand for the stock and she gave it to him. She was certainly not going to offer to bandage his leg if he could do it himself. Beside any other consideration, the infuriating creature would probably take it as an invitation to further familiarities and she had the lowering feeling that touching him again would shatter her resolve. ‘Thank you.’ The knot he tied was workmanlike and seemed to stop the bleeding, so there was no need to continue to study the well-muscled thigh, she realised, and began to tidy her own disarranged neckline as well as she could.
    ‘Your wounds were caused by a tiger, I hear,’ Dita remarked, feeling the need for conversation. Perhaps she was a trifle faint after all; she was certainly oddly light-headed. Or was that simply that kiss? ‘I assume it came off worst.’
    ‘It did,’ he agreed, yanking his cuffs into place. Pradeep came over, leading the chestnut horse. ‘Thank you. Is it all right?’
    ‘Yes,
sahib.
The rein is broken, which is why the
sahib
was not able to hold it when he fell.’ The
syce
must think he required a sop to his pride, but Alistairappeared unconcerned. ‘Does the
sahib
require help to mount?’
    He’ll say
no,
of course,
Dita thought.
The usual male conceit.
But Lyndon put his good foot into the
syce’s
cupped hands and let Pradeep boost him enough to throw his injured leg over the saddle.
    It was interesting that he saw no need to play-act the hero—unlike Stephen, who would have doubtless managed alone, even if it made the wound worse. She frowned. What was she doing, thinking of that sorry excuse for a lover? Hadn’t she resolved to put him, and her own poor judgement, out of her head? He had never been in her heart, she knew that now. But it was uncanny, the way he was a pale imitation of the man in front of her now.
    ‘What happened to the
mahout?’
she asked, putting one hand on the rein to detain Lyndon.
    ‘He survived.’ He looked down at her, magnificently self-assured despite his dusty clothes and stained bandages. ‘Why do you ask?’
    ‘You thought he was worth risking your life for. Many
sahibs
would not have done so.’ It was the one good thing she had so far discovered about this new, adult, Alistair. ‘It would be doubly painful to be injured and to have lost him.’
    ‘I had employed him, so he was my responsibility,’ Lyndon said.
    ‘And the villagers who were being attacked by the man-eater? They were your responsibility also?’
    ‘Trying to find the good side to my character, Dita?’ he asked with uncomfortable perception. ‘I wouldn’tstretch your charity too far—it was good sport, that was all.’
    ‘I’m sure it was,’ she agreed. ‘You men do like to kill things, don’t you? And, of course, your own self-esteem would not allow you to lose a servant to a mere animal.’
    ‘At least it fought back, unlike a pheasant or a fox,’ he said with a grin, infuriatingly unmoved by her jibes. ‘And why did you put yourself out so much just now for a man who obviously irritates you?’
    ‘Because I was riding as fast as you were, and I, too, take responsibility for my actions,’ she said. ‘And you do not irritate me, you exasperate me. I do not appreciate your attempts to tease me with your shocking