Her Every Pleasure Read Free Page B

angle of the loft’s window, Sophia lowered the telescope from her eye with an uneasy frown, wondering if it was really safe to stay here.
    Like her, the man appeared to have larger matters on his mind. Caught up in his own troubles, he seemed unlikely to come into the old abandoned barn.
    But should she take that chance?
    The alternative certainly sounded worse. She did not want to be wandering out on the road in case her attackers managed to track her this far.
    Gnawing her lip, she scanned the landscape, debating with herself on which was the lesser of two evils.
    After a moment, she let out a low sigh and decided to stay. The vicious creatures who had attacked her carriage clearly meant her serious harm, while the solitary stranger in the church had seemed entirely distracted by his own private demons.
    He’d probably never notice she was here at all before her guards found her again—and even if he did, there was no reason to assume he’d pose a threat. True, he had a dangerous look, but if he was out at this hour visiting a church, albeit a broken-down one, lighting candles for some unknown cause, then that at least suggested that he had a conscience, which was more than she could say for her as-yet-unknown enemies.
    Unknown?
she corrected herself bitterly.
They’re Turks. I am sure of it
. The European countries who might otherwise have been her top suspects were as tired out from the nearly twenty years of war that had just ended as England was.
    Suddenly, she heard something stirring behind her.
    Sophia whirled around, bringing up her knife.
    Searching the shadows, her heart pounding, she saw no one. Scanning the loft, a bit of movement near the base of the haystack caught her eye.
    What?
    Abruptly, a small laugh escaped her. She lowered her knife and put her hand to her heart with a smile, her startled pulse beginning to slow back to normal.
    Kittens.
    Little puffs of fur, baby barn cats, apparently out on a grand nocturnal prowl.
    The three fuzzy kittens had discovered her knapsack, she saw, shaking her head. One had crawled inside of it, leaving only his stripy tail sticking out.
    The tail disappeared as the contents of her knapsack moved around. She smiled wryly as the disappearing kitten came shooting out of her knapsack again, pouncing on his brother. They tumbled.
    Well.
Not quite the guardian angels she could have used at the moment, but at least they would keep her amused.
    With a final glance over her shoulder at the lonely church, Sophia put the intriguing stranger out of her mind and went to befriend the fuzzy trio of venturesome little clowns.
    Anything to distract her from her dread over the fate of her friends. Surely they would be all right. Her Greek guards were very well trained. Still, terror had begun to creep in belatedly as the aftermath of the night’s clash.
    She had known, of course, that she would be a target. She just hadn’t expected it to start so soon.
    As she sat down on her cloak near the tumbling, shy kittens, she couldn’t help wondering who she thought she was fooling, or how she ever had dreamed this plan would work, this plan to claim the throne her father had lost. In this dark, lonely hour after what had happened back on the road, she could not seem to stop the doubts that came rushing in. Who was she to rule a country? A mere girl!
    Worst of all, the secret truth was that she hardly even remembered Kavros, for she had been all of three years old when her family had been forced to flee—though she could still hear the cannons’ booms on that terrifying night. Yes, she possessed the royal blood, but good heavens, she was only a young woman, barely twenty-one!
    With that, Sophia abruptly remembered that it was her birthday.
    She let out a low, cynical snort and lay back on her cloak, stretched out on the hay.
    So much for her grand notions of shoving her demands down the diplomats’ throats.
    Ah, maybe the dairymaids of this world were the lucky ones, she mused while one