Spellbound & Seduced Read Free

herself.
    Realizing that she’d been staring at him rather covetously, Jura blushed, telling herself she was imagining the seductive quality to his smile. A soft scraping on the window gave her an excuse to turn away. ‘That will be Brianag wanting in.’
    She opened the latch of the window, and a sleek silver cat jumped into the room, shaking out its snow-tipped fur. Jura leaned out of the window. ‘The snow is even heavier now. If it keeps on like this, no one will be going anywhere.’
    The tightly laced gown she wore showed off the sensual dip of her spine to her bottom. It was a very nice bottom, Lawrence thought appreciatively. Her gown stopped just above her ankles. As she leaned out of the window, her petticoats rode up, giving him a delightful glimpse of her pretty calves, the backs of her knees. She wore neither shoes nor stockings. She had lovely toes. He had never seen such lovely toes. He should not even be noticing her toes, with his head aching and his clothes sopping.
    The long rippling fall of her tawny hair fluttered over her beautifully rounded rump. Were she naked, it would caress her breasts, silken threads, giving him tantalising glimpses of her nipples. Would they be pink, like her mouth, or darker? And would the curls which covered her sex be the same tawny colour of her hair, or darker? Darker, he decided. And her nipples would be darker pink too.
    Jura pulled closed the window and turned around, catching him unawares. Embarrassed to discover that his musings had made him hard, Lawrence crossed his legs. For heaven’s sake, what was wrong with him! His libido was not usually so rampant. In fact, given the circumstances, he couldn’t understand why it was even present. The silver cat wound itself around his booted ankle. ‘Bry-an-ack,’ he said, struggling with the soft Gaelic syllables. Dammit, the cat was a sinuous as her mistress.
    â€˜Bree-an-ach,’ Jura corrected him, stooping to pat the creature, affording Lawrence a tantalising glimpse of cleavage. “Do you want me to help you take off your boots?”
    His boots, his breeches, and whatever else she chose to remove! Lawrence shook his head. “I can manage.”
    Jura nodded. “Mind you do now, else you’ll likely catch a fever. I’ll be back in a moment.”
    The door closed behind her. Lawrence stared into the flames of the fire. Back home, he would have been in the midst of preparations for tonight’s ball. His mother would find time, in between driving the servants mad with unnecessary reminders and completing her lengthy toilette, to lecture him on the merits and demerits of each eligible partie. He grinned. His temple throbbed. His feet were soaking. Hoby’s boots were obviously not designed for Scottish snow. His coat, too—the superfine was wet through at the shoulders to his shirt. Still, he wouldn’t swap places even if he could, because cold and tired and lost as he was, he was also thoroughly intrigued and no little aroused by his barefoot and unaccountably unattached hostess. Lawrence took off his boots.
    Â 
    In the wooden lean-to that was her still room at the back of the cottage, Jura collected together leaves, seeds, roots, and essential oils. Lifting her mortar and pestle from the shelf, she set about pounding a balm for the bruising, a tisane for the headache.
    She had never seen such extraordinarily blue eyes as Lawrence Connaught had. If she could have cast a spell to conjure a lover, she’d have wished for eyes exactly like those. She’d have wished for hair to curl over her lover’s collar as Lawrence’s did, for his mouth to curve delicately under just such a straight nose. Her spell would have given her lover just that aura of sensuality, the same heady mix of potency and confidence which would make her feel both vulnerable and desirable.
    She was not accustomed to feeling either. Her powers made her inviolable. It was her