All About Passion Read Free Page B

out. She ignored Gyles and rushed for the butler.
    "Oh, Mr. Bulwer, you got to come quick! There's a chook got loose in the kitchen! Cook's chasing it with a cleaver, but it won't stand still!"
    The butler looked offended and guilty simultaneously. He slid a helpless glance at Gyles as the maid dragged with all her might on his sleeve. "I do apologize, my lord—I'll get help—" Gyles laughed. "Don't worry—I'll find my way. By the sound of it, you'd better settle things in the kitchen if you want any dinner tonight."
    Relief washed over Bulwer's face. "Thank you, my lord. The stable lad will have your horse ready." Before he could say more, he was dragged away. Gyles heard him scolding the maid as they went through the swinging door.
    Grinning, Gyles strolled to the front door. Letting himself out, he descended the steps, then, on impulse, turned left. He strolled the parterre, admiring the trimmed hedges and conifers. On his left, the stone wall bordered the path, then a yew hedge continued the line unbroken. He turned left again at the earliest opportunity—an archway in the hedge giving onto a path through the shrubbery. He looked ahead; the stable's roof rose beyond the hedges.
    Stepping through the archway, he paused. An intersecting path ran both right and left. Glancing toward the house, he discovered he could see all the way to where the stone wall he'd earlier paced along joined the corner of the house. Close by the house, a stone seat was built out from the wall. On the seat sat a young lady.
    She was reading a book lying open in her lap. The late-afternoon sun beamed down, bathing her in golden light. Fair hair the color of flax was drawn back from her face; fair skin glowed faintly pink. From this distance, he couldn't see her eyes yet the general set of her features appeared unremarkable, pleasant but not striking. Her pose, head tilted, shoulders low, suggested she was a woman easily dominated, naturally submissive.
    She was not the sort of woman to stir him at all, not the sort of woman he would normally take the time to study.
    She was precisely the sort of wife he was looking for. Could she be Francesca Rawlings?
    As if some higher power had heard his thought, a woman's voice called, "Francesca?" The girl looked up. She was shutting her book, gathering her shawl as the woman called again.
    "Francecsa? Franni?"
    Rising, the girl called, "I'm here, Aunt Ester." Her voice was delicate and light. Stepping out, she disappeared from Gyles's view.
    Gyles smiled and resumed his stroll. He'd trusted Charles and Charles had not deceived him—Francesca Rawlings possessed precisely the right attributes to be his amenable bride. The path opened onto a grassed courtyard. Gyles stepped into it—
    A dervish in emerald green did her best to mow him down.
    She landed against him like a force of nature—a small woman barely topping his shoulder. His first impression was of wild black hair curling riotously over her shoulders and back. The emerald green was a velvet riding habit; she was booted and carried a crop in one hand.
    He caught her, steadied her—she would have fallen if he hadn't closed his arms about her. Even before she'd caught her breath, his hands had gentled, his rakish senses avidly relaying the fact that she was abundantly curvaceous, her flesh firm yet yielding, quintessentially feminine—for him, elementally challenging. His hands spread over her back, then his arms locked, but lightly, trapping her against him. Full breasts warmed his chest, soft hips his thighs.
    A strangled "Oh!" escaped her.
    She looked up.
    The green feather in the scrap of a cap perched atop her glossy curls brushed his cheek. Gyles barely noticed.
    Her eyes were green—a green more intense than the emerald of her gown. Wide and wondering, they were darkly and thickly lashed. Her skin was flawless ivory tinged a faint gold, her lips a dusky rose, delicately curved, the lower sensuously full. Her hair was pulled back and