The Black Sheep's Return Read Online Free Page A

his end-of-day stubble of whiskers. He had strong rather than patrician features and a bony nose, but there was a hint of humourabout his expressive mouth that saved his face seeming austere as a medieval monk’s.
    Since she had avoided his gaze when they came into the mellow light of what smelt like a luxurious wax candle rather than the stink of tallow she expected, she had no idea of the colour of his eyes. Such faint light probably wouldn’t show it anyway, even if she somehow found the courage to meet his shrewdly assessing gaze, but he had the most amazingly long and thick dark lashes she had ever seen on a man. Meanwhile, the touch of his work-worn hand on her tender foot was surprisingly gentle and she let herself watch him prod and probe her poor battered feet to divert herself from the pain and noticed his fingers were long and sensitive, as well as clearly strong and very fit for whatever purpose he set them by day.
    She took in the scent of him without the sort of indelicate snuffle she had allowed herself on smelling smoke from the blessed fire that was now thawing out her aching limbs when she was still in darkness and she decided he shared that oddly clean smell of wood-smoke and deep woodland she had appreciated with what she thought might be her last breath. Add to that a touch of soap and clean man and she concluded he washed of a night, perhaps atthe same time as he bathed his children, so he could leap into action of a morning with only an early morning shave.
    Only just restraining herself from adding touch to her exploration of him, she pulled her hand back in time not to explore his overlong thatch of curly hair and see if it felt as alive and wilful as she thought it must be under her probing fingers. Perhaps that was why he lived out here in the middle of nowhere, because the family who had made sure he was educated and taught the manners and speech of a gentleman then found they couldn’t control him either. He looked like a man who went his own way, so why would that way bring him to a humble woodsman’s cottage in the heart of the most remote forest he could find?
    Everything about the man was a puzzle and when he met her eyes with cool resignation, she could see that he knew it. Whatever shade his eyes were there was no cruel, hot greed in them as there had been in the eyes of the men who attacked her coach today and those of her parliamentary suitor. She had been desperately frightened and on the verge of a very un-Freya-like attack of the vapours all day, but suddenly the world seemed to rock back on to its proper axis.
    ‘You’re probably wishing you’d never found me lying out there now,’ she said as he knelt at her feet like a subject king.
    ‘Shall we say you could prove a mixed blessing, Perdita, and leave it at that?’ he said as he rose to his feet and moved into what she presumed was a scullery from the cool air that wafted in and reminded her how much night there was out there to be terrified of.
    ‘Isn’t she the heroine of
A Winter’s Tale?’
she questioned and caught herself presuming cottage dwellers didn’t read Shakespeare. ‘I’m sorry to sound so astonished,’ she added as he reappeared with a bowl and some rags. ‘Out here in the midst of nowhere, I dare say you read to pass the long winter hours when you cannot work.’
    ‘I dare say I do,’ he said uninformatively and she began to realise there were areas of his odd way of life he refused to lay open for her to read and became even more intrigued.
    ‘Pray, what is your name?’ she asked with some of Lady Freya’s haughty assurance.
    He raised his eyebrows and went on soaking rags in the icy water as if only the slight wind getting up outside had disturbed the peace of the night, other than Atlas’s lusty snores.
    ‘It will seem odd if I address you as “sir” or“you”, will it not?’ she said in this new Perdita’s softer tone and found she liked it better as well.
    ‘You can call me