The Desperate Love of a Lord Read Online Free Page B

cold and bleak. Autumn had turned to winter. He couldn’t even go tonight now, not in this. He’d have to leave in the morning.
    It meant another restless night in the inn. Yet his heart suddenly flared with warmth as hope surged in – he’d see her tomorrow. Tomorrow. If this woman was her?
    It had to be her.
    Mayer? He was sure the name had some connection to her. He knew it for some reason. But why would she change her name, and why go by Mrs and not by her title?
    What or who was she running or hiding from? Him?
    All he felt inside was confusion.
    His boot slipped on the cobble, making him stumble, but he didn’t fall. He slowed his pace. The mist was clinging to his coat and in his hair. All he could really see was the ground beneath his boots and an eerie glow reaching through the murky grey from any lights burning in the shop windows as he walked further up Queen St. He turned into Quiet St, his hands curling into fists in his now damp greatcoat. Lamplight shone through the grey, drawing his eyes to a small jewellers shop on the left. The shop attendant was busy lifting trays of rings from the window.

    A deep seated need pulled Geoff toward it and he pushed the door open. A bell rang above it. The shop assistant, who was leaning over slipping trays into drawers, looked up sharply, then straightened. “We are just closing, sir.”
    “My Lord,” Geoff corrected, “and I am just going to make a purchase. You’ll stay open. I want a ring, an engagement ring.” When he found Violet, he was not letting her escape again. She would know how he felt if he had already thought of this.
    “My Lord,” the man acknowledged bowing slightly, and then he bent down again and lifted a tray from below then placed it on the shop counter.
    “I want sapphires. She has blue eyes. Sapphires and diamonds.”
    The shop assistant lifted one eyebrow but bent again, then set another tray beside the other. “Their maybe something here you like, my Lord.”
    Geoff scanned the rings nestled in midnight blue velvet. They glinted at him all calling to be picked. Ruby, emerald… Sapphire. He knew most of Violet’s jewellery was sapphires. Sapphires must be her preference.
    A ring stood out. The gold was woven like threads with blue and clear stones shining from between the strands. Sapphires and diamonds. He picked it up. It was tiny to his large hand.
    A memory of once playing with one of her rings, crept into his thoughts. It had been a long time ago, just after he’d met her, when she’d seemed like an ethereal being, all testing, brash confidence and beauty.
    He slipped the ring onto the tip of his little finger and tried to visualise the comparison to when he had done the same with one of her rings. It seemed a similar size.
    It had to be the choice. The one meant for her. It would fit perfectly.

    “I’ll take this one.”
    The attendant set it in a velvet bed, in a leather box, and passed it to Geoff as Geoff handed him the money.
    The shop bell rang again as Geoff left.
    When he’d tried one of Violet’s rings on, it had been the first night he’d slept with her. He walked back to the inn through the mist, remembering that night.
    She’d propositioned him. He’d been looking. But she’d spoken.
    She had walked past him and run her fingertips across his midriff. Then across the room she’d fluttered her fan and looked over the top as he’d stood transfixed for an age.
    She was stunningly beautiful.
    When he’d made no move after an hour she’d worked her way about the room, stopping here and there talking and laughing, and then she had walked up to him.
    Her fan had snapped shut and then she had tapped his arm, and she’d said with a seductive smile and a glint in her eyes, “You look like a man who enjoys his entertainment, Sparks. I bet you play a good hand. Do you fancy a game?” Of course she had not been speaking of cards.
    His heart had thumped as he’d answered. “Where?”
    “My house I think. I do not