Her Wicked Sin Read Free Page B

to her acquaintance, he found her innately appealing. Never before had he been so taken with a woman, even as he’d entertained a long parade of those pushed to claim access to his fortune through the transaction of marriage.
    None had been like Lydia.
    When her hands fell to his bare abdomen, the air crackled like the fire upon the hearth. Even she seemed startled as she drew breath and froze, save for her eyes seeking his, but she quickly pushed aside her hesitation and worked her soft ministrations against his skin. Her innocence only increased her appeal, though she was no untried girl. She was a widow who had surely known the pleasures of the marital bed.
    His thoughts in cooperation with her touch roused his manhood, and his breeches did little to hide the evidence. For perhaps the first time in his twenty-four years, he cursed his need. He would do nothing willingly to alienate himself from the lovely physician’s company, but he could not stop that for which he ached.
    She had dismissed her hesitance, no longer seeking permission to explore him. He sought in her a trace of the desire he cultivated, but she did not meet his eye. Not until she found his flustered groin did she speak. “You are not yet incapacitated, are you now?”
    He blinked his surprise. Oh, how her quick tongue captured him! “Forgive me. You must know how you provoke desire.”
    “I know the reputation of man,” she said. “Desire need not be provoked by much.” She felt her way down his good leg, finding him absent reaction. To the next leg, she began with his foot. “Do you feel this?”
    He thought she added pressure, though it evoked little pain. “I do.”
    She worked to his ankle, then his calf. “How is this?”
    Henry thought she might cure all with her womanly touch, but kept that to himself. “No sharp pain. Just sore.”
    “Perhaps then you were just twisted about. A good rest and you will be on your way, though I should remove your boot.”
    Oh, but if she undressed him further he would be thoroughly undone.
    She took his silence as question. “You do not want to swell within the leather. You might wear it for weeks, or else be forced to cut yourself free.”
    “As you wish, though I cannot promise help.”
    “Verily, I note your occupation.” She followed her bold words with a shy glance to his groin.
    “It is the fortune of a woman,” he said as she worked at the boot, “to keep private those innermost desires.”
    The boot slipped free with a harsh, stabbing pain. She settled his leg in place and said, “You are so certain I entertain them?”
    He clutched mightily the bed boards, still waiting for the hurt to ease. Though he wanted to engage her further, he hardly took in her words over the pain. “Might I trouble you for another taste of your rum?”
    “Of course.” She delivered the drink with haste, then set to work on his other boot. This one freed itself without circumstance.
    The drink’s burn provided his first salvation, her caress the second.
    “It’s only a bit misshapen,” she said.
    For the barest moment, he thought she spoke of his rook. He flushed hot, though crediting the rum and not the silken quality of her voice. He had fallen victim that night to more than his horse.
    “Have you any children?” he asked, hoping the change in subject would distract from the turn of his thoughts.
    “No,” she said without inflection. “One, but he was lost.”
    Lost? What tragedy she had faced, this woman.
    “And you?” she furthered. “Of the age of matrimony, are you not? Why have you not a wife and a home full of babes?”
    “I may tripe convention, but I wish for a woman who is more interested in me than my holdings.”
    “And your father approves of the delay?”
    The words struck a sore note, but he would not weigh her with those frustrations. A man of his age should be ripe to take a wife, but he did not agree with the many paraded before him, each of his father’s choosing. “Of course