The Impostor Read Online Free

she thought she would die of it.
    She had not seen Sebastian in over six long years. The smile he now gave her, the warm light in his eyes, was for another woman, a woman he had chosen for his lover, a woman he might even have loved.
    Tessa knew, too, that when she revealed her identity and the reason for her deception, he would not even recognize her. She had seen to that years ago, the last time they had met, when he had waited for her in the looted palace at the Escorial, and the sky had burned scarlet over the delirious city.
    But the memory of the last time he had kissed her, his hands gentle in her hair as he held her close, still had the power to pierce her with the force of a bullet to the heart.
    “Do you care to dance, Miss Cameron?” Sebastian asked.
    “Of course,” said Tessa automatically.
    The long, stunned silence that followed this pronouncement told Tessa she had made a mistake. Harriette Wilson stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment.
    She realized why when Sebastian led her onto the dance floor. The instinctive revulsion that rose in her was Jane Cameron’s. The actress disliked dancing with Sebastian, disliked his crippled leg, his scarred face too close to her, but she always agreed to these odious requests because Grenville was rich and generous, she had to please him, just smile at him and pretend that she liked him, that she liked the feel of his rough hands on her body. Because it had been asked of her.
    Jane’s thoughts made a wave of fury rise within Tessa.
    Forcing herself to remember to retain Jane’s form, she took the arm Sebastian offered her and followed him to the next room and onto the dance floor. The orchestra struck the first faint, delicate notes of a waltz, and he led her to the center of the room.
    Tessa, who had never known what it was like to be beautiful and admired, felt the eye of every man in the room upon her as he drew her into his arms. Their stares made her skin crawl.
    To distract herself from her disgust, she focused instead on the music. The waltz began slowly, gently, each measure soft and lingering, and Tessa, leaning back to gaze into Sebastian’s eyes, could feel her heart breaking anew.
    But then the music gathered strength and speed, and they swirled together in an irresistible whirlwind of light and color and sound. Giving in to the intoxicating magic of the waltz, Tessa forgot everything but that she was once again in the arms of the man she loved.
    They had danced thus in the barns of the Portuguese countryside, the peasant cottages of Frenada, the ballrooms of Madrid, in the glow of tallow candles, with the snow falling outside, or the summer wind whispering through the trees.
    They had danced thus, as the drums sounded and the trumpets played. They had danced thus on nights when they had not thought to live through the next day, and their feet had been as light as thistledown and snow.
    Sebastian’s gait was a little awkward, but she moved easily with him, following him unhesitatingly as he checked and reversed through the throng of dancers. Her feet—not Jane Cameron’s perfect feet, the feet that had never known calluses or blisters from long marches through the most treacherous terrains of Spain and Portugal, but her own, the feet that had followed Sebastian into battle and into hell—remembered the precise moment to step, to turn.
    And resting her hand lightly against the broad, solid shoulders of the man she had never stopped loving, Tessa closed her eyes and gave herself up to the soaring melody. The golden music swept through her soul like a wind, and she shivered in his arms, wishing this waltz might last forever. But the melody rose, arching toward the climax; Sebastian turned her faster and faster, and then, with a final perfect phrase, the music came to an end.
    Tessa stood perfectly still in the center of the dance floor, staring up at Sebastian as her heart beat a heavy tattoo in her breast. She could only hope her expression did not