Bexley-Smythe Quintet 02 - Rhyme and Reason Read Free Page B

herself more comfortably in his grip. Her head moved up to rest against his shoulder so that her forehead brushed against his jaw. She hardly weighed a thing. True, he did a great deal of physical labor in the stables and so he was stronger than the average man, but she felt almost as small as a child in his arms.
    Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. Children did not have curves like the ones this Lady Matilda had.
    With her head nestled against his neck, the soft cushion of one full breast pushed against his chest so close he could feel the peak of a nipple through their clothing. He kept one arm wrapped around her waist, his hand gripping her securely at the flare of her hip, while the other hand was hooked beneath her knees. It was precisely as a man might carry his bride into the bedchamber on their wedding night.
    Good God.
    He bit down hard on his lower lip, hoping to redirect his thoughts. He had no business—none at all—thinking about a lady’s curves, and particularly not thinking about carrying this lady into his bedchamber.

    Mattie’s head throbbed, and her whole body was bumping and jerking along, like she was in a poorly-sprung carriage. But she couldn’t be in a carriage, could she? No, that didn’t seem right. She opened her eyes but immediately forced them closed again. The sun was blinding and made her head hurt to the point she wished it would split in two. That would probably hurt less.
    But she was absolutely, unequivocally not a carriage.
    She snuggled herself closer to the warmth along her side, burrowing her nose in the scent of the outdoors and a hint of musk.
    Then her eyes shot straight open, despite the pain from the sun. That wasn’t just warmth. It was a man .
    A man who was carrying her.
    She blinked again, then stared more intently. It wasn’t Sir Lester. This man was easily a few years older than the baronet. And handsomer, but she had no business thinking such a thing. She didn’t even know his name! How could she think about how handsome he was? Not to mention it wasn’t fair to Sir Lester.
    Who was he, and why was she being carried? And where? Good heavens.
    Her head shot back so she could look up at him. A jolt of pain shot through her head from the movement, but she didn’t care. She needed to see him so she could discover who he was and what was going on. He had rich, brown hair, a little long on the sides, the ends curling under. His blue eyes were the same color as the ocean, and he had a sharp, angular jaw…a jaw covered in blood.
    Mattie gasped and reached up her hand to touch him there, the red blood staining her white glove on contact. “You’re bleeding, sir.”
    The last thing she would have expected was for him to laugh, but that was precisely what he did—a gentle chuckle, but a laugh, nonetheless.
    “That’s your blood, not mine, my lady. Your head…” He tilted his chin, using it to point toward the very spot at her temple which felt like it had exploded at some point in the not-too-distant past.
    Oh. Well, that would explain the monstrous headache, at least.
    It did not explain why she hurt so much, however. “What…happened?” she asked cautiously, as every word seemed to reveal a new place that she ached. Her nose was quite sore, pronounced by the movement of her mouth as it tugged her skin. Her arms and hands, too, felt as though they’d been battered.
    In a fall … Yes, now she remembered. A man had shouted a curse, and it had startled her, and she’d fallen on the cliffs.
    She could have fallen backward. Oh my. She’d been so very close to the edge.
    But she hadn’t fallen. Or perhaps this man had caught her? Mattie couldn’t really be certain. Everything was floating around in her head, none of it settling down to form sensible and coherent thoughts.
    This man, whose wondrously strong arms were wrapped so intimately around her, was carrying her up a series of steps—the steps to the house Lord Teasdale had let for the summer. Mattie