How To Bed A Baron Read Online Free Page B

man to be heeded.”
                  Serena swatted his forearm. “I follow the strictures of the locals wherever I go. Honey and garlic are good for healing as well.”
                  “I had no idea you were such a fountain of peasant knowledge.”
                  “Peasants know a great deal, Arthur.”
                  He was not certain he agreed, but he would not argue the point. The warmth of her body was tucked close beside him in the carriage, as she had not bothered to sit in the forward-facing seat across from him. She always did the unconventional, most unexpected thing. Arthur knew that he should rise and sit across from her himself, but with the scent of cinnamon claiming his senses and the soft wool of her cloak brushing his hand, he simply could not do it.
                  The ride to Magdalen College was not a long one, for which he was thankful. He schooled himself to impassive calm, reminding himself that, as a gentleman, he could not take advantage of a lady in distress. With her father dead and strange Frenchmen dodging her steps, Serena qualified as a woman in need. He would keep his own nascent desires to himself, even if it killed him.
                  Which it very well might.
    ***             
    Serena was very happy when the coach finally stopped.
                  Unlike most of the mind numbing, body breaking journey she had endured getting home to England after ten years away, the last leg of the odyssey to Oxford University was warm, comfortable, ensconced in the velvet and polished oak of Arthur’s traveling chaise. And beside her, sitting too close for her peace was Arthur himself, larger than she remembered, and unfortunately, just as honorable.
                  She thought of all the bastards whose company she had been forced to endure as her father struggled to keep the dig going when his own money had been cut off from him behind the enemy lines of the ongoing war. She remembered the gropes she had just barely managed to dodge, the smug smiles, the assumption that for a fee, the pleasures of her body came along with the pleasure of working with her father.
                  Serena had sworn to herself that once she was home, back among the civilized men of Oxfordshire, she would live in her father’s house, or rent it out and find a small cottage of her own, where she might live out her days in quiet, called on only by the local spinsters, the occasional widow and perhaps the vicar’s wife. She promised herself that she would never have to endure the unwanted touch of a man again.
                  And now, safe in Oxfordshire, safe beside the one man on Earth who would rather die than offer her insult, the one man alive who would kill any man who did so, Serena wanted nothing more than to feel the touch of his hand on her arm.
                  And elsewhere.
                  Serena cursed herself, and as the carriage rolled to a smooth stop outside the antiquities library of Magdalen College, she told herself not to be a fool.
                  She gathered what was left of her wits and her pride and leaned down to take up the bag she had carried all the way from Parma, only to find it in Arthur’s grip.
                  He smiled at her and climbed out of the carriage, handing her down to the paving stones as if she were made of spun glass, as if she were a precious thing. Serena’s hand itched for the worn strap of the bag that held her father’s legacy, but it was heavy, and Arthur lifted it easily. If she could trust him with her virtue, she could trust him with this.
                  “Thank you, Arthur.”
                  He quirked a brow at her as he had when they were children, looking bemused if not outright amused. “No need to thank me, Serena. I would carry you much farther, and