The Naked Prince Read Free Page A

coach swayed to a halt. “I certainly intend to enjoy myself—and Maria—to the fullest.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m afraid of,” Damian muttered as Stephen leapt from the carriage.
    Damian descended more sedately, pausing to have a word with his coachman just as a cart clattered up next to him, blocking his path to Greyham’s door. Rude, but perhaps the driver thought Stephen had been the carriage’s only occupant. He turned to regard the man and bit back a smile.
    The fellow—one of Greyham’s footmen—looked harassed, as if he were fleeing the Furies. Or perhaps he’d been condemned to escort one of the unpleasant sisters. The woman seated next to him certainly looked the part of an avenging goddess. Her old, ugly bonnet hid her hair so successfully he couldn’t tell its color—or if it were indeed a writhing mass of serpents—but her slightly bushy brows were a golden brown. At the moment, they met over her nose in a deep vee of temper, and her generous lips were pressed firmly together as if she’d just bitten into a lemon.
    She wasn’t beautiful—her nose was too long and her chin too sharp, and she looked to be far too tall and thin—but she drew his attention like a magnet. Her eyes, even angry, were compelling. They were the same golden brown of her brows and were large and fringed with long lashes. Who was she?
    Her worn, unfashionable clothing marked her as someone’s maid, but her demeanor gave the lie to that theory. Yet she looked nothing like Maria Noughton and her ilk. She couldn’t be a guest.
    The footman whose job it was to help arriving ladies alight apparently was of the same opinion. He stayed on the portico, sheltered behind one of the pillars, out of the chill February wind.
    â€œJem!” The cart’s driver tried to get his attention, but the wind whipped his words away.
    Well, Damian could help. He didn’t care if the woman was a duchess or a dairy maid; she was female and could use a hand in descending. He moved around the back of the cart to reach the passenger side.
    The woman made a short, annoyed sound. “I can get down myself, you know,” she told the driver and began to suit action to words.
    â€œMiss Atworthy, please—”
    Everything happened at once then. The driver, distracted by his passenger, let his hands drop. The pony, beginning to shiver in the wind, took that as an invitation to bolt for the warm barn. Miss Atworthy, gathering her skirts and rising to depart, jerked backward as the cart lurched forward. Her hands flew up into the air, and she screamed as she tumbled over the side.
    Damian leapt forward to catch her. A flailing froth of feminine skirts and curves plummeted into his arms.
    â€œ Oof! ” He staggered back a step but managed to keep his feet and his hold on Miss Atworthy. She was not a featherweight. And she was not as thin as he’d guessed, or at least not thin in the important areas. Her bottom and breasts felt very nicely rounded.
    She gaped up at him, clearly disoriented by her sudden change in altitude. At this proximity, he saw her eyes had flecks of gold and even hints of green in their depths. Golden brown curls, freed from her bonnet, tumbled over her forehead. He inhaled her scent—lemony, clean and fresh—and it hit his brain like brandy on an empty stomach. He was drunk on the feel and smell of her, and like a drunkard, he acted on his impulses. He bent his head and covered her wide mouth with his.
    She stiffened, and he thought for a moment she’d push him away, but then she relaxed, so he let his tongue go where it wished—into her warm mouth.
    She tasted sweet, full of promise.
    Stephen was right: it had been far too long since he’d been with a woman. Perhaps he would enjoy himself at this damn house party—when he wasn’t keeping an eye on Stephen, of course.
    Her tongue tentatively touched his.
    Or maybe