Silver Moon Read Online Free Page B

pounded and blood sped through her body. Her breathing became forced and she fought hard to control herself and her strange reaction.
    “It is you, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice low, his hands wanting to reach out and touch her.
    Although his voice sounded strained, she reacted to the depth and power within it. “It’s I, Elyse,” she whispered, the emotions of her heart sending her words to him.
    Standing stiffly before him, she found herself in the grip of strange and conflicting emotions as his eyes raked her face, swept across her breasts, and roamed to her booted feet before returning to her face. “The heiress returns to claim her properties.”
    It took her only a heartbeat to realize he spoke with unsheathed bitterness. It took another breath before she drew her shoulders straight and kept the hurt from showing on her face. “I’ve returned, Brace. I’ve come home.”
    “Home? I thought England was home. Isn’t that where you live?”
    “This is my home,” she replied, keeping her voice as level as possible, and wondering why he was welcoming her so cruelly.
    “If this is your home, where have you been all these years? Why did it take you so long to return?”
    She almost backed away under the onslaught of his heated words—almost. Not understanding his hostility, and in order to defend herself, Elyse reverted to her heritage.
    “Who are you to ask these questions? What I do, or do not do, is my concern, not yours!” she snapped in a cold, harsh voice.
    Brace, his mouth forming a tight line, nodded his head to her. “As you say, Mistress Louden.” Brace bowed formally and turned, his broad shoulders blocking everything from her view as he walked away.
    Elyse watched him until he reached the bottom of the hill, mounted his horse, and rode off. An eternity later, fighting all the strange emotions rushing wildly through her mind, Elyse walked down from the hill.
    As she descended, the full view of the sprawling house her father had built chased away the strange confrontation with Brace, and the unusual way in which she had reacted to him and his words.
    Looking at the house in which she had been born, Elyse made herself relax. Devonairre was one of the island’s great houses, built from the sandstone carried as ballast in the ships that had brought sugar to England. The island estate was a hundred years younger than the Louden estate in Devon.
    Yet the island house had a large, stately look all its own. The main house was of nice size—not overly huge. What made it so large were the two wings, which spread from it, and connected by covered walks. Both wings were equal in size to the main house, and built with the same sandstone blocks.
    When she reached the front of the house, another wave of childhood memories assaulted her. With every step she’d taken, Elyse remembered another part of her past.
    Devonairre stood proudly, its sandstone face awash with the glow of the sun, awaiting her entrance. Only then did the tears she had suppressed for so long spring forth to trace wet paths down her cheeks.
    Reaching the steps leading to the main house, she swept her gaze across its face, drinking in every line, calling up memory after memory of the child she had been when she’d last seen her home. She stared up, lost in thought, and did not see the woman who stood on the front veranda, watching her come toward the house.
    When the woman started down the stone stairs toward her, Elyse recognized her immediately. Her flaxen hair, veined with silver, was wrapped in braids upon her head. Her eyes, jovial and warm, were the same ones that little Elyse had watched many times.
    By the time the woman reached her, Elyse was smiling widely. The woman stopped and stared at her; Elyse waited as the other’s eyes roamed over her face, taking in every feature.
    “Elyse?” Ann Denham half-asked, half-stated.
    “Hello, Ann,” she replied happily.
    “You’re so…grown up,” she said, her eyes misted as she