Bitten by Desire Read Free Page A

chilled, for the window was still open. Allegra, exhausted from her night’s ramblings, lay sound asleep on the end of the bed.
    Such a dream. It came back to her as she fixed her nightgown. The memory made her blush. A slight ache between her legs revealed a small bruise on her inner thigh and some tiny abrasions crusted with blood. Her nails obviously needed trimming.
    Blood rushed to her head as she sat up. She felt euphoric, dizzy, exhausted. As she lay back down again a cold, handsome countenance swam before her. Vaelen. Her sinful secret. Her dark angel summoned from the black, full-moon night.
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    Over the coming days the memory of the dream tormented Imogen. Vaelen haunted her thoughts so much she could not settle to anything. Even her mother-in-law, who normally paid her scant attention, felt moved to comment on it. “Really, my dear, you are in a most distracted humour these days. What on earth has got into you?”
    What indeed? When her fevered mind started to hallucinate him, to conjure him outside the confines of her bedchamber, she worried that her mind was affected. He made his first appearance in the theatre. Attending Mr Kean’s renowned performance of Shylock, she was certain the shadowy presence whose gaze touched her like a mist from a box opposite was Vaelen, but when she glanced up at the interval the box was empty, and remained so.
    In the early morning, as she rode in Hyde Park accompanied by her groom a day or so later, she was sure it was he who rode past her at a fierce gallop astride a black stallion shining with sweat, though his face was a blur, and he passed so quickly that only the drumming of the horse’s hooves on the track reassured her it was no ghostly vision.
    She often thought she glimpsed him across crowded rooms at parties, but he seemed always to melt away when she tried to approach him, or even to meet his gaze. Was she going mad? But surely the very act of wondering meant she was sane. Despite this she was not reassured. He seemed to have got into her blood, like an illness or an elixir. He possessed her. She could sense him before she saw him—or thought she saw him—an awareness so acute that it hurt. Each time it happened, panic clutched at her, squeezing its vice-like grip round her insides as she forced herself to contemplate the idea that he might be real. Because if he was…
    But then he disappeared like smoke or mist or whatever ephemeral thing he was made of. Yet she longed for him to exist, for if he did not it was becoming clear that she could not either. Not in any meaningful way—not any more. Her fate, her very existence, seemed irrevocably entwined with his. Which was a truly mad idea. But she could not seem to stop herself thinking such irrational thoughts. The more elusive Vaelen was—or the illusion of him was—the stronger became her obsession.

Chapter 3
    â€œSix ruffians I tell you, and not a one left standing at the end of it. By Gad, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    â€œCome, Aldridge, we all know your tendency to exaggerate. Two in the morning you say it was? So you’d have had at least four bottles by then. You must have been seeing double.”
    A burst of masculine laughter greeted this, but Lord Aldridge was insistent. “I tell you, there were six of them. Footpads, there on the Strand, after his purse. It’s a damned disgrace.”
    â€œAnd did you not feel inclined to go to Kilmun’s assistance?” Lord Cullen enquired.
    â€œWell, of course I damn well did, but by the time I’d crossed the road he’d dealt with them himself. Why, I doubt even Tom Cribb in his prime would have shown a handier pair of fives,” Lord Aldridge declared. “Anyway, if you don’t believe me, ask the man himself.”
    The Earl of Kilmun strolled into the card room and, waving away a footman bearing a tray of Lord Cullen’s excellent claret, joined his host at the far