The Rake and the Recluse REDUX (a time travel romance) Read Free Page A

glanced at her hand and suddenly felt the heat of him sinking into her skin. She yanked the appendage back. Compose ? Her gaze snapped to his. “Compose this, jackass!” she yelled, ignoring the searing pain that knifed through her throat and head as she flipped him off.
    His jaw twitched.
    Taking one more step forward, she drew herself up and let her hands fall to her sides. She realized, rather abruptly, that the difference between them was not slight and she wished she had her heels on so as to even it a bit. He must have been more than six feet, and it wasn’t just his height that was overwhelming. He was broad through the shoulders, which was greatly emphasized by his stark white shirt, brocade vest, and well-tailored suit. Was I at a wedding?
    She looked back up. His jaw was wide and sharp, his full lips drawn against a set of straight, gleaming teeth, and his dark hair curled at the ends. She met his eyes. They were curious but stern--deep pools of emerald green with a few hints of topaz near the edges. Her mind swirled.
    She leaned toward him, inexplicably drawn as a fly to a web, and she closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. His scent was soap and spice, slightly dusty, with a hint of salty exertion and something else she couldn’t quite place. She gazed into his face, and his tense expression had the most overwhelmingly comforting effect on her.
    She took a deep breath and felt her eyelids start to flutter. He seized her by both arms above the elbows and pulled her toward his chest. He held a wide stance and lifted her, her thighs drifting between his as she worked to keep her toes on the ground.
    “You will show some semblance of respect when you address me within the boundaries of my estate. Is that understood?” The words rolled from the depth of his cavernous chest as his eyes smoldered, and though it was posed as a question, there was no debating the rhetorical nature with which it was delivered.
    Francine glanced to the servants, wondering if they would help or hinder her, but they were frozen in place. She tried to break free of his hold as she looked back to his ferocious countenance. She felt the corded muscles of his thighs surrounding her own, his proximity overwhelming as she tried to figure out what to do with her arms. She alternated pushing her hands against his hard, unforgiving chest, then curling them toward hers. Finally, his heaving breaths accentuating his strength, she began to hyperventilate.
    “Calm yourself,” he said fiercely.
    She turned her head away from his brutal visage only to catch sight of herself in a tall polished mirror—then forgot him altogether. Her jaw dropped and she quit her struggle as she gazed at a woman standing in her place, half-naked and covered with bruises, her hair tangled with twigs and soil. But what troubled her most was the color and length. The deep brown hair fell like water cascading over rapids, well past her waist, the curling tips gently brushing her backside. “Madeleine,” she said, sotto voce. The eyes in the mirror grew wide as she lost control of her breathing entirely and stared at the reflection of who she wasn’t. She tried to scream, but the sound caught and heat flooded her throat as she fell limply against him.

“Bloody hell!” Roxleigh exclaimed, grasping at the wilted girl’s shoulders as she slid down his front like a sack of bones. He bent one knee between her legs to brace her before she hit the floor. “Doctor, if you please.”
    Dr. Walcott smoothed his hair as he approached and grabbed her legs. When he finally had hold of her, Roxleigh marched with him toward the bed and released her as quickly as he was able, dropping her to the mattress.
    “Thank you, Dr. Walcott, for your attention.” He wiped his hands down the front of his jacket, partly to straighten his rumpled clothing and partly to erase the tingling that spread like wildfire from where he had touched her.
    He turned swiftly, smoothing his disarrayed locks and