Read Online Anne Ashley by His Makeshift Wife - Free Book Online Page B

unless bidden to do
so.’
    He released her at once, letting his hand drop to his side,
almost in a gesture of reluctant acceptance, or even defeat. He even sounded
slightly despondent as he said, ‘I admit last night was a grave mistake on my
part and I assure you it will never occur again. You’ve decided we’ll not be
lovers and I shall respect that decision. But does that mean we may not at least
be friends? The next six months shall be bleak, indeed, if we remain aloof
strangers.’
    All at once she felt ashamed of herself for overreacting to
what had been nothing more than, she now felt sure, a bit of ribald teasing on
his part. She wasn’t some pampered child who couldn’t take a little playful
tormenting from time to time. She’d always prided herself on her sense of
humour, for heaven’s sake! So why on earth did she react so negatively to this
man’s gentle goading?
    ‘I—I see no reason why we cannot become…friends,’ she returned
softly, and was rewarded with one of his most beguiling smiles. He really was
the most attractive man, she decided, most especially when his waving brown hair
flopped casually over his forehead, as now, and he was dressed for riding,
clothes that suited his muscular frame so admirably.
    ‘Good. And you can prove you mean what you say by accompanying
me to the local town. I need to engage some tradesmen to make necessary repairs
to the lodge. Besides which, it will do no harm at all for the locals to see us
about together.’ He cast a disapproving glance down at her attire. ‘But I have
no intention of taking you about dressed in widow’s weeds.’
    She wasn’t sure whether he was teasing her again or not. ‘But,
Luke, Godmama has been dead a mere few weeks,’ she reminded him, but to no
avail.
    ‘And the very last thing Aunt Lavinia would have wanted was for
you to go round resembling a crow for a lengthy period,’ he returned, remaining
firm in his resolve. ‘If you wish to be seen showing respect, then don that gown
and pelisse you wore in church yesterday. In the circumstances, I do not imagine
anyone will think any the worse of you for putting off your blacks so soon.
People will consider it understandable as we are newlywed.
    ‘Now, hurry along and change,’ he added before she could
continue arguing the point, ‘and I’ll meet you in an hour.’
    Obediently she turned and left him to study her departure.
Seeming to glide across the ground, she walked with all the natural grace of a
professional dancer, moving from the hips with a gentle, almost seductive
sway.
    ‘If I might be so bold, Major, you’ve gone and caught yourself
a very pretty little woman there. And spirited, too, I’m thinking,’ Ben Carey
opined, emerging from the stable in time to witness his young mistress
disappearing from view between the trees.
    And also an exceedingly desirable
one, Luke reflected, experiencing anew the surprising surge of bitter
disappointment and regret he had felt the night before at her rejection of a
normal relationship between them. Yet he ought not to feel so, he reminded
himself. A union in name only was what he had wanted, after all…wasn’t it?
    In truth, initially, he had entered her bedchamber in the hope
of catching the maid in attendance on her mistress still—a ruse, merely, on his
part to convince the staff that all was well and as it should be between master
and mistress. Then suddenly everything had changed. After that initial glance
across at the bed to discover his young bride resting there, a prize that any
red-blooded male would covet, with those lustrous chestnut locks of hers
cascading about her face and shoulders, quite simply something within him had
stirred. And it had been more, he realised now, than mere lust, a desire to
explore the delights concealed beneath the virginal nightdress that had covered
her from neck to toe. Had he been given the least encouragement to join her in
that bed, one thing he would not be doing now was