The More I See You Read Free Page B

farther than she had thought. If she just ran fast enough, she would run right into the house and avoid being doggie dinner. Then she would have Lord Henry find out just who was riding over his fields with big, slobbering hounds and reprimand them politely for scaring the sh—
    She shrieked as she felt her feet leave the ground.
    Her captor snarled something at one of his companions and was answered with a raucous laugh. Jessica would have tried to sort that out, but she was too busy looking down between her dangling feet and watching the ground fly by. This was almost as unpleasant as being dumped over Archie’s shoulder. Hopefully there wasn’t an army of tourists watching her wretched rescue.
    Rescue? What was she thinking, rescue? She’d probablybeen kidnapped. She had been kidnapped and was being carried who-knew-where to have who-knew-what done to her. She looked around wildly only to find filthy, cloak-begarbed men riding with their attentions fixed on whatever the hounds were chasing.
    One thing was for sure: she didn’t see any kind of shiny knight on a white charger heading toward them to defend her abused self.
    “It was a stupid idea anyway,” she muttered under her breath as she marshaled her strength to make a bid for freedom. She would just have to take care of herself by herself. She put her hand under her captor’s arm and shoved with all her strength.
    “
Merde
,” he growled.
    Jessica’s head snapped up of its own accord.
Merde?
Well, it was just a good thing her grandmother wasn’t around or the guy would have found his mouth washed out with whatever cleansing agent was handy.
    The men started yelling at each other again and this time Jessica listened more intently. Yes, it was French, but it was the wackiest accent she’d ever heard. She’d spent a year after college wandering through France—and apologizing to her grandmother’s relatives for her grandfather’s having married and carted said grandmother off to the States after the war—and during those travels she had done a great deal to improve her knowledge of the language her grandmother had so diligently taught her. But in none of her groveling visits had she heard French spoken quite like it was being spoken now.
    The horse came to an abrupt halt and Jessica almost sighed in relief. Now she could apply herself to the task of getting down and getting away.
    Her relief was short-lived. Before she could move, she was grasped ungently around the waist and plopped down sideways over the front edge of a high saddle, leaving one leg over the horse’s withers and the other leg over a man’s thighs.
    And it was at that precise moment that she knew something was terribly, dreadfully wrong.
    Never mind that she’d somehow lost the manor house in the mist. Never mind that the men around her were speaking some strange French dialect in the midst of the English countryside. No, what really bothered her was that the saddle horn she was holding between her thighs looked uncomfortably like those medieval ones she’d seen in Henry’s castle. Just who the heck would have swiped something like that? The thug who held her captive? She didn’t want to take a look at him, but she knew she’d have to do it sooner or later. No time like the present to determine the direness of her straits.
    She took a deep breath and looked up.
    Whatever breath she’d been holding, she lost immediately.
    He was, and she had to swallow very hard to keep from choking, the most terribly beautiful man she had ever seen. He had a long, wicked scar that traveled from his temple down his cheek to the side of his chin and below his jaw. Somehow, though, it just didn’t detract from his handsomeness, dark though that was. His face was all planes and angles, harsh even in the deepening gloom. His hair was dark and his eyes were full of cynicism.
    Before she could wonder about that, she felt herself jerked backward off the horse thanks to a hand in her hair. She couldn’t