Rules of Passion Read Free

cumbersome. The fashion was changing, skirts were becoming more rigid and hems longer. Marietta preferred the less fussy styles, too many flounces made her curvaceous shape appear even more curvaceous. But today even her Amazone bodice, plain and tightly buttoned to the neck andwrists, felt awkward, while the long ends of her scarf mantella were threatening to strangle her, and her velvet bonnet had been tipped to the side by her exertions.
    As she climbed over the edge of the basket, she was just congratulating herself on her nimbleness when the toe of her elastic-sided boot caught. She stumbled and would have landed flat on her face if the stranger had not reached out and caught her.
    Her breath whooshed out as she fell against him, his hard, masculine body a bulwark against hers. For a moment she could not think—her mind went completely blank. Shock, whispered a voice in her head. You aren’t used to being this close to a man. But it was more than that. Her senses were overloaded with information: the clean male scent of him, the dark shadow on his jaw above her, the heat of his palm on her back. Marietta found herself a little shaky just from being there, which was ridiculous enough in an untouched spinster, but for a ruined woman…!
    The thought sent her instantly to the furthermost corner of the basket.
    “Thank you,” she said, an afterthought.
    Politely, he bowed his head; his eyes never left hers, and there was no smile in them. Nothing to tell her that what she had just felt had been experienced by him, too. Indeed the look he gave her made Marietta think he was also wishing her miles away.
    “Perfect,” she muttered under her breath. “I am about to ascend in a balloon with a man in a mood.”
    Mr. Keith had finished his preparations. He climbed into the basket with them, swinging his legs over the side with practiced ease. The basket was big enough for five, but it seemed only Marietta and hercompanion were to be passengers today. “Are you ready?” the aeronaught asked, but it was obvious he did not expect a negative answer. Marietta sat down and clung to the side and nodded vigorously.
    “Get on with it, Ian,” the stranger said in a deep, impatient voice. He sat down and crossed his long legs.
    “Dear me, Max.” Mr. Keith shook his head as if he found the other man beyond his comprehension, and then he called out to his helpers. The balloon was cast off without fuss, ballast was thrown out, and they began to rise, quite quickly, into the London sky.
    “Oh!” Marietta gasped.
    The ground was rapidly slipping away from her. The crowd—their faces lifted—was growing smaller and smaller. There was a strange silence, almost like a dream, as they rose higher. Below her lay Vauxhall Gardens, and then the Thames, and beyond that the bustle of London, with its pall of smoke, stretching away as far as she could see. The Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s dome were visible, looking awfully small, and the green squares and parks stood out among the lines of streets and the boxes that were houses.
    “You haven’t been introduced.” Mr. Keith spoke above the soft underlying roar of the city below them.
    Reluctantly Marietta lifted her eyes from the Thames as the breeze tugged the balloon along.
    Mr. Keith smiled at her as if he understood her sense of dislocation. “Miss Greentree, this is my friend, Max. Max, this is Miss Greentree.”
    “How do you do,” Max said in a disinterested voice. He gave her a brief glance that was more indifferent than unfriendly, before turning once more to gaze down over the city spread beneath them.
    Marietta shrugged off his behavior, and returned to her own perusal of the Thames, a glittering silver snake broken up by bands of bridges, with ships at anchor and steamboats like wind-up toys. Soon they were moving towards Richmond, sailing over fields and hills, leaving behind the smoke of London and its pointed spires.
    “Are you enjoying yourself, Miss