Read Online Clandestine by Julia Ross - Free Book Online

place, his dark gaze burning with unsettling intensity over her uplifted arms and bent neck.
    A tiny runnel of heat crept up her spine.
    She was alone in a private room with a man other than her husband for the first time since Captain Callaway had died. An extremely attractive young man dressed in nothing but an open-necked shirt and buckskin breeches, with a black bandanna wrapped rakishly about his hair.
    A man who had used the petals of an orchid to touch her face.
    Suppressing that shimmer of awareness, Sarah dropped her hands.
    Several sheep slipped down onto her shoulder. She grabbed at them.
    Guy Devoran crossed his arms and smiled at her.
    â€œThen I must at least apologize for those damnable sheep,” he said. “It was important that Ryder and Jack recognize you, and there were several shepherdesses here tonight. Otherwise I’d never have picked such a mad costume.”
    â€œI really didn’t mind,” she said, though she thought suddenly that perhaps she did mind, a great deal. “I’d already surmised as much.”
    She turned her back and struggled again to disentangle the mask.
    â€œJack’s integrity is absolute, and he might have noticed something relevant. After all, he also met your cousin once.”
    Sarah jerked around to face him. To her mortification, wig, hat, and sheep all slipped a little over one eye. She was forced to put up both hands to steady them.
    â€œBut that was a year ago and only very briefly!”
    â€œNevertheless, he agrees that I must rescue her—though first I’d better rescue you.” Guy Devoran grinned as he strode up to her. “I don’t think you can salvage that unspeakable headdress. Fortunately, you don’t need it any longer.”
    In one smooth movement he lifted away her silver wig. Some stray pins immediately caught in Sarah’s hair, threatening to tug the heavy mass into a miserable entanglement about her shoulders.
    She glanced up—and felt as if she’d been unexpectedly caught in a net.
    Guy Devoran stood locked in place, looking down at her. A tiny spasm tightened the muscles around his mouth, almost as if he’d received a small blow.
    The silence sang, humming like a thin wire vibrating just beyond the range of her hearing.
    For the length of a heartbeat they stared at each other, while streamers of heat unfurled in her veins.
    Thick lashes rimmed his eyes. Each iris was a perfect dark chocolate, rimmed in the thinnest of black circles. His gaze smoldered—burning with power, and passion, and some dark, wicked knowledge—as if he were willingly consumed for her, as if his very soul were abandoned to desire.
    No man had ever looked at her like this, as if he would burn directly into her heart to plumb straight into those confused depths.
    Sarah spun away, flushed with the knowledge that her frail skin had already betrayed her.
    Her fingers fumbled as she disentangled the remaining pins and set the headdress on a nearby chair.
    â€œThank you, sir,” she said.
    Mr. Devoran strode away. For a moment he stood with his back to her, but then he tore the bandanna from his head and laughed.
    â€œI no longer need my disguise either,” he said. “You’ve no idea how absurd I feel dressed up as Sinbad the Sailor.” He stripped off his red belt and tossed it onto a side table. The pistols and knives clunked. “With weapons made of wood, no less.”
    Sarah pinned her wayward hair firmly back into place. “Plus a parrot.”
    He turned and smiled as if nothing were wrong. “Yes, I thought you’d like Eight.”
    â€œEight?”
    â€œPieces of Eight—the parrot. That’s how high he can count, as well, but he’s also a very good watchdog.”
    â€œYou thought you needed a watchdog?”
    He removed another silver lid and lifted out a decanter of wine. Rivulets ran down over the cold surface.
    â€œEight would have screeched like a