Enraptured Read Free Page B

her trembling was the result of the cold or delayed fright or the strange, delicious sensations that had flooded through her. The man was impertinent. Forward. Overbearing. Rude. Crude. Obviously the sort who was accustomed to shouldering his way through life, expecting men to stand aside and women to fall into his arms. And why not? That was exactly what had happened.
    Shame washed over Violet. How could she have reactedlike that? She had spent all her life fighting men’s opinion of women as weak, emotional, and incompetent, yet in an instant she had thrown it all away. She had been scared and in need of rescue, and when he kissed her, she had not even had the fortitude to push him away. No, she had just stood there, helpless, betrayed by her own body, while he held her still and took what he wanted.
    No, he had not taken; she had been happy to give it to him. Indeed, she had been on the verge of throwing her arms around him and asking for more. Violet closed her eyes, remembering the feel of his mouth on hers, the velvet softness, the way his lips had moved over hers, the touch of his tongue. She let out a soft noise that was as much pleasure as anger. She barely paid attention to the village as the post chaise rolled through it and turned off onto a smaller road. She was too busy trying to calm her racing pulse and banish the heat that pooled low in her abdomen. It would be disastrous to face her new employer in this shaken, frayed, tender state.
    Violet took a calming breath and then another. That was a little better. At least she had, in the end, come to her senses and pulled away from him. She recalled the look of astonishment on his face as she jumped back into the carriage, and she felt a certain grim satisfaction. No doubt he was unused to being rejected by any woman. He was far too handsome for that.
    She closed her eyes, picturing the glint of his hair in the low light—too long and untidy to be fashionable. What color were his eyes? It had been too dark to tell. But she had seen that firm chin well enough . . . the square jaw . . . the broad shoulders. Unconsciously she let out a sigh.
    He was massive, his hands huge. Yet the fingers that had curled around her nape had held her gently. His lips had been unbearably soft, his mouth seeking, not demanding. Pleasure curled in her abdomen all over again at the memory. Long ago she had been kissed by the man she had almost been foolish enough to marry, but it had felt nothing like that.
    How delicious Coll had tasted. If she had let herself throw her arms around him, she knew his muscles would have been thick and hard beneath her touch. She imagined sinking her fingers into his arms. His shoulders. His back. She thought of his deep, rumbling voice, softened by a Scottish burr. It had rolled through her like warm honey.
    The voice had fit the man—outsize and solid, reassuring. She wondered who he was. His clothes had not been those of a gentleman. They had been rougher, plainer, like a worker’s garments. Yet something about his speech had set him apart from the other men.
    It was not just that his accent was less thick; something in his words, in his turn of phrase, spoke of . . . gentility? No, that was not quite right; he had clearly called himself one of them. Education, perhaps? Violet smiled to herself. No, there was nothing of the narrow, hunched academic in that man’s broad shoulders.
    The carriage turned, and she pulled herself from her wayward thoughts, lifting the curtain to look out. They were approaching a pair of tall, ornate gates, opened wide. She straightened and peered in front of her as the vehicle rumbled down a long drive. Trees grew close to the road on either side, but finally they emerged onto a wide lawn. An enormous mansion loomed before her. Violet craned herneck to look up at the ornate towers atop the castle—there was no other word for it, with its crenellations and turrets. The post