The Heiress Bride Read Online Free Page B

and perhaps kiss her and fondle her just a bit to teach her a lesson. Damned impertinent chit—and she was a Sassenach to boot, which made sense since he was in London. Still, he believed Sassenach young ladies to be more reticent, more modest. But not this young lady.
    â€œUntil tomorrow, then,” he said, and was gone before Alex could bear down on them.
    Colin searched out Brass and unceremoniously plucked him out of the theater. “No, don’t complain. I’m taking you outside, away from all these female distractions, and you’re going to tell me what the devil is going on here. I think you’re probably behind this absurd jest, and I want to know why you set that girl on me. The gall of her still has my head spinning.”
    Alex watched the man, Colin Kinross, pull Brass from the huge lobby. She looked back at Sinjun tosee that she was also staring after him. She correctly assumed that Sinjun’s thoughts about the man weren’t nearly as prosaic as her own.
    â€œHe is an interesting-looking gentleman,” Alex said, getting the ball rolling.
    â€œInteresting? Don’t be ridiculous, Alex. That’s utterly inadequate. He’s beautiful, perfectly beautiful. Didn’t you see his eyes? And the way he smiles and speaks, it—”
    â€œYes, my dear. Come along now. The intermission is over and Douglas is getting testy.”
    Alex bided her time, but it was difficult. The moment they arrived back at the Sherbrooke town house, she kissed Sinjun good night and grabbed her husband’s hand, dragging him into their bedchamber.
    â€œYou want me that badly?” Douglas asked, staring at her with some amusement.
    â€œSinjun met Colin Kinross. I saw her speaking to him. I fear she’s been rather forward, Douglas.”
    Douglas looked down at his hands. He then lifted a branch of candles and carried it to the table beside their bed. He studied it for a while, in meditative silence, then shrugged. “We will leave it be until tomorrow. Sinjun isn’t stupid, nor is she a silly twit. Ryder and I raised her properly. She would never ever jump her fences too quickly.”
    At ten o’clock the following morning, Sinjun was ready to jump. She was waiting on the front steps of the Sherbrooke town house, dressed in a dark blue riding habit, looking as fine as a pence, so Doris had told her firmly, and she was lightly slapping her riding crop against her boot.
    Where was he? Hadn’t he believed her? Had he just realized that she wasn’t to his taste and didn’t intend to come?
    Just before she was on the edge of incoherence, she saw him cantering up, astride a magnificent black barb. He pulled up when he saw her, leaned down just a bit, and gave her a lazy smile.
    â€œAren’t I to be allowed in your house?”
    â€œI don’t think so. It’s too soon.”
    All right, he thought, he would accept that for the moment. “Where is your horse?”
    â€œFollow me.” She walked around the back of the house to the stables. Her mare, Fanny, was standing placidly, calmly accepting the caresses bestowed on her neck by a doting Henry, one of the stable lads. She waved him away and mounted by herself. She arranged her skirts, knew in her heart that she wasn’t physically capable of presenting a finer picture, and prayed. She gave him a tentative smile. “It’s early. Shall we go to the park?”
    He nodded and pulled alongside her. She didn’t say a word. He frowned as he neatly guided his stallion around a dray filled with kegs of beer and three clerks dressed in funereal black. The streets were crowded with hawkers, shopkeepers, wagons of all sorts, ragged children from the back streets. He stayed close, saying nothing, keeping a lookout for any danger. There was danger everywhere, naturally, but he realized that she could deal with most anything that could happen. If she couldn’t, why then, he was a man, and he