The Seduction Read Online Free Page B

Mistress Seton."
    "Where is your carriage? You did not walk to
Manston Μingate, surely?"
    "I left a horse, ma' am, at the Three
Tuns."
    The bow was his undoing. As he straightened, he
staggered, dizzy.
    Immediately she let the words tumble. "Mr.
Granville, you aren't yet strong enough to ride!" She even reached out a
hand, though she snatched it back without touching him. Sitting down, she plunged
back into the shelling of peas.
    Ah, so she was bountiful by nature! He was
ferociously glad of it.
    "I cannot think to impose on you any
further, ma'am. The Three Tuns is only a short walk. Ι have taken a room
there for the week."
    Α handful of peas fell through her fingers,
bounced off her skirts and scattered on the path. The ginger cat arched its
back and stalked off, the white one began to lick at a paw, but the tabby
purred, butting at his ankles.
    He crouched and rubbed behind its ears.
"Does your tabby have a name?"
    "Meshach." She sat as if helpless,
watching his hands.
    "Then the others are Shadrach and Abednego?
Ι always loved that story as a boy. The three men of faith, cast into the
fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar and rescued by an angel, survivors against
overwhelming odds. Which is which?"
    Α spatter of water fell among the scattered
peas. Then another. The blue of her eyes reproached like a bruise.
"Shadrach is the ginger-"
    "And Abednego the white?"
    More water splashed onto the path. The cats raced
away. Α cold breeze rustled the hollyhocks as a rumble of thunder boomed
overhead. He stood and clutched at the gate with one hand, dizzy again.
    "It's going to rain." She rose,
fumbling with her bowl. "You had better. . ." The scattering of drops
began to run together, wetting the bricks. "You aren't well-   You had better come inside!"
    She bent to pick up her stool, just as Alden
reached for it. Their fingers touched. She snatched away her hand, but she
looked up at him in that moment of electric awareness, something close to panic
in her eyes.
    Without hesitation, he took the bowl of peas,
lifted her hand and turned it over. He ran his thumb over the roughened skin
and the calluses on her palm.
    "Quel dommage,” he said softly. What a pity!
    She jerked away. He thought for a moment she was
ready to weep. "Pray, sir, do not insist upon gallantry. It has no meaning
for me, Ι assure you. Ι have been widowed five years. Ι do a
great deal of my own work. Ι can carry a stool."
    The wooden legs swung against her skirts as she
walked rapidly away up the path. Thunder rolled again. Casting the trees into
stark gray relief, the sky blackened and let loose a downpour.
    She had left the front door open.
     
    JULIET KNEW HE WOULD HAVE TO DUCK HIS HEAD TO
STEP INTO her hallway. Then those strong legs in their tall boots would stride
across the old tiles to the warmth of the kitchen at the back of the house. It
came as a sudden vision: a man like this, laughing and lovely, walking every
day through that hallway with the right to be there. Or better, better - taking
her away from all this into his own bright world!
    An impossibility.
    She looked at her hand for a moment, furious with
herself. Had it ever really been the hand of a lady? The palm burned where he
had touched it, with that surprisingly gentle, caring caress. This was folly,
wasn't it? Her vision was bankrupt, now and forever. She should have left him
there in the garden to drown.
    Working at the pump handle, she filled her
kettle, then hung it over her open grate to boil. Α scrubbed pine table
with a long bench and two chairs filled the center of the room. Copper pots
shone on the walls. She looked up as Mr. Granville came in, his bead framed by
her hanging bunches of herbs, his shoulders brushing her lavender. He moved beautifully
- trained in the grace of an aristocrat - something impossible to hide, even in
a tall man. Α reminder of balls and suitors, of exquisite ladies and lords
in silks and lace, dancing until dawn. Α very long time ago.
    She waved