Read Online Eloisa's Adventure by Rebecca King - Free Book Online Page B

with a tall, dark and extremely attractive stranger,
in a house that was just as sinister as he was.
    “Let’s
see what we can do about getting some light in here, shall we?” He
murmured quietly when she continued to stare at him. As he passed
her, he ran a palm through his hair when his body was teased by the
delicate scent of lavender she wore.
    She
stood back to allow him past and watched him move across the room
with the silent grace of a panther. Strength emanated from him so
naturally that she was enthralled by how someone so large could
move so quietly.
    Simeon
bent down in front of the fire and quickly lit the logs. He frowned
at the neatly laid timbers before him. He knew he had just found
more evidence that someone had been here. The last time he had been
at the property he had left the fires to burn out. As far as he was
aware, nobody should have been at the house in the three weeks he
had been away. When flames roared heartily in the grate, he stood
and turned to face the room.
    God, she is stunning, he mused as he
eyed the damp ringlets that bumped gently against her pink-tinged
cheeks. Even through the gloom, the shimmer of rainwater on her
shoulders held him captivated. He suddenly had a strong yearning to
light the room, and quickly, so that he could see more of her. The
desperate need to take some air while his body cooled pushed him
out of the door.
    “Go and
sit by the fire where it is warm, then you can take that cloak off.
It must be soaked, and will give you a chill if you keep it on,” he
suggested. “I am going to fetch some water from the well. I won’t
be a minute. Don’t go anywhere.”
    “All
right,” she murmured reluctantly. She opened her mouth to ask him
where she could go, but he didn’t give her the chance to speak. He
disappeared into the storm before she could even get across the
room. Rather than sit in one of the chairs beside the hearth, she
hurried to the window, but it was too dark to see anything outside.
The only thing she could see was her reflection in the
window.
    She
stared at the reflection of her dress in disgust and looked down at
her soiled skirt. It was only when she looked up again that she
became aware she was no longer alone. A scream locked in her throat
when, in the reflection of the window, a second figure appeared on
the opposite side of the room. She spun around with a gasp of
alarm. Her heart pounded in her throat but, to her consternation,
all she found was an empty room. She scoured every nook and cranny,
and even looked under the table, but found no trace of anyone else.
Had she just imagined it? Or had she just seen Simeon outside the
window, and mistook him for a reflection of someone in the
room?
    Get a hold of yourself Eloisa, she
sighed. She closed her eyes and willed herself to calm
down.
    It was
only when Simeon re-appeared that she remembered he had a white
shirt on. It was easily recognisable from across the width of the
room. The small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end when she
realised the figure she had seen behind her had been wearing
black.
    “All
right?” he asked as he closed the door behind him and slid the bolt
across.
    Eloisa
opened her mouth to speak. What could she say? No, she most
certainly wasn’t alright? I thought I saw someone? If she told him
that, and he asked her for further details, she couldn’t tell him
anything. Now that she came to think about it a little more, the
figure hadn’t had a face. There had been just an outline of a
person dressed in black. If what she had seen had been a real
person, the paleness of their face against the darkness of the
night would have been visible – wouldn’t it?
    “Are you
alright, Eloisa?” he prompted as he stalked across the kitchen and
placed the pale on the table with a dull thud.
    The
sound of her name on his lips snapped her out of her
daze.
    “Yes,
fine,” Eloisa assured him jerkily. “I was just looking at the storm
outside.”
    Simeon
bit back a snort of