Read Online Her Wicked Sin by Sarah Ballance - Free Book Online

room.
    “Very well then,” Lydia said aloud to herself. Shaking her head, she gathered her things and let herself out of the house. The servant waited outside and offered assistance onto the wagon, which Lydia accepted. She could not shake the worry of Abigail’s threats, but the spoiled, petulant child’s own mother had seemingly dismissed her nonsense. Perhaps the girl’s threats would lay empty. Lydia forced the thoughts from her head.
    The road toward home lay ahead. And at the end of it, Henry. Her husband in name only.
    Dare she allow more?

Chapter Six
    Henry fancied himself an outdoorsman, and as such, profoundly disliked his bedridden state. Yet there was a certain charm to Lydia’s small home that eased some of his burden. Back at his parents’ estate, nature dared not encroach on the well-tended lawn—rather, it lined itself precisely in the neat rows of an English garden and any plant that strayed from its allotted confines quickly met with precise pruning. The plants did not grow robust in that meek environment, and in many ways, neither had Henry. He had recognized his discomfort, though it wasn’t until he first traveled from the estate had he realized that he did not fit into the world his father had worked so hard to build. But he could not become the second son to leave his mother, so he had stifled the urge to escape into a simpler place. His travels had fed that urge, but nothing had ever quenched it like this quaint little home he now shared with Lydia.
    His wife .
    He had spent so long disparaging his father’s attempts at arranging matrimony that he wasn’t quite sure how to reconcile the heartfelt joy of having Lydia as his wife. And this modest home with the trees scraping the outer walls and air creeping through its joints made him feel alive in ways he had not before. His father would say the adventure would wear off and Henry would soon want for his better station in life, but Henry could see nothing better than what he was experiencing at the present.
    That was, not until Lydia let herself inside the home alongside a bout of cold air. Her cheeks were pink and a strand of loose blond hair rested across her nose. When her gaze rested upon him her eyes lit to a brilliant blue.
    She glanced toward the hearth where the fire roared. “You must be feeling quite well,” she said.
    If he admitted pain, would she examine him? Perhaps he should not have made the fire so warm, lest she had need to join him under the blankets so they could fight the cold together. “There is a certain tenderness,” he said.
    She set her bag on the table and shed her coat.
    He awaited the now-familiar question— May I examine you? —but this time it did not come. Instead of the formality, he received the gift of her approach without a request for permission. The smallest of steps, but considering her past it was perhaps the most meaningful.
    She sat next to him on the bed and felt his knee through his breeches. “Seems the swelling is down,” she said.
    He grinned. “Some of it.”
    A pretty blush tinted her features.
    He sat up, leaving precious little space between them. The stretch pulled his knee, but he cared not. He needed to be close to her, to feel her soft breath against his skin. Reaching with an unsteady hand to brush those strands of her hair which had fallen loose, he leaned closer and touched his lips to hers. But he did not pursue the kiss.
    Lydia seemed frozen, but then suddenly she began to thaw. She drifted closer until her lips pressed firmly to his, and it was she who parted in slight invitation.
    Though he shook with the need to consume her, he held fast but for a slight tilt of his head. He would not take this choice from her.
    She had removed her hand from his knee, and now it threaded his hair. She was so gentle, the gesture filled with such intimacy he thought the ache would never end. Then she opened her mouth fully to him.
    He groaned aloud, wasting no time in accepting the