Disrobed and Dishonored Read Online Free Page A

edged toward the door. ‘I will leave the cloak in the hut.’
    ‘Helpful?’ Jonathan demanded of the door as it closed softly behind her. ‘ Helpful?’
     
    The storm that shook Saint’s Ford Manor had subsided to merely hurricane velocity by ten the next night. Mrs. Catchpole eventually recovered from the hysterics brought on by her charge’s careful description of exactly how a man’s member felt when held in the hand and had braced herself sufficiently to assure Sir Hugh that, indeed, it would appear his virginal daughter had been deflowered. And what was worse, that the young woman was so far abandoned to propriety that she was threatening to tell Sir Jeremy about it, in detail, if she was compelled to persist with the betrothal.
    Sir Hugh had subsided from puce to mottled crimson and stopped shouting long enough to agree that, to prevent scandal, he would inform Sir Jeremy that Sarah had changed her mind and there was nothing to be done about it. The spurned suitor had driven off in high dudgeon.
    That had all taken until midafternoon. The rest of the day had been filled with recriminations, more hysterics, demands to know who the man was—and firm refusals by Sarah to say—and dire warnings of what would become of her should she prove to be with child.
    She nearly blurted out that there was no danger of that and bit her tongue, concentrating on looking determined—which she was—and ashamed of herself, which she most assuredly was not. What she was also feeling was an alarmingly awareness of her own body and an utterly immodest desire to do it all over again. And again.
    Finally Sir Hugh had retired, muttering, to his study with a full set of decanters, Mrs. Catchpole had succumbed to a migraine and Sarah deemed it tactful to retire to her bedchamber for the night.
    Mary, beaming with delight that somehow her mistress had routed the feared Sir Jeremy, was agog to know how she had done it, but all Sarah would say was that she had stood up to her papa and that finally he had accepted, with very bad grace, that she could not be forced into the match.
    The maid left Sarah in nightgown and robe, a book of poetry in her hand, and went off to raid the cooking sherry in celebration.
    Quite how Sarah realized she was not alone, she was uncertain. There was no sound, no stirring of the air—just a tingling down her spine. She put down the unopened book with care and turned, her fingers closing around the candlestick. A tall, masked figure materialized from the shadows in the corner by the window.
    ‘Jonathan! How long have you been there?’
    ‘An hour.’ His voice sounded cold as he put up his hands to untie the mask, tossing it aside, his eyes not leaving hers.
    ‘While I was undressing?’ she demanded, then realized how foolish it was, after yesterday, to be indignant about that. ‘How did you find me?’
    ‘I followed the hoofprints of your horse, made some inquiries in the village. It was not hard.’
    ‘No.’ Her heartbeat was all over the place. ‘You must have heard me taking to Mary; you know my plan succeeded, thanks to you.’ He must have done more than listen; he had been there in her most private, feminine space, a space she had expected only a husband to enter. ‘Why have you come?’
    ‘To return these.’ He tossed the long rope of pearls on to the bed and this time she could hear the anger in his voice.
    ‘I’m sorry I tied you up.’ Sarah found she was stammering more than she had when she confronted her father. ‘I did not want you to find out who I was.’
    ‘It certainly gave my friends considerable entertainment to find me tied naked to the bed by one silk stocking and a string of pearls,’ he said, his lips thin.
    ‘Oh no!’ Sarah stared back, aghast. ‘I thought it would be easy to get free.’
    ‘Silk tightens under stress and those pearls are an expensive string, the thread is strong. No, Sarah, I was trussed like a gamecock in a basket and had to wait to be