Read Online Jade Lee by Winning a Bride - Free Book Online Page B

away.”
    “But—”
    “Do you want to know what I see?” he asked, easily bowling over her words.
    She swallowed. He saw it distinctly. She didn’t answer because he had frightened her, but there was a current of excitement beneath the fear. Of that he was certain because a shaft of moonlight brightened her bodice. And right there, plain as day, were the twin bumps of her erect nipples.
    “I see you, Miss Josephine Powel. I see how you looked with your tongue sticking out at me.”
    “You deserved that—”
    “And I saw you falling from a tree last July and nearly breaking your leg.”
    She gasped in surprise.
    “You had a streak of dirt right there on your cheek, just like that, and you laughed and laughed while you gripped your sides.”
    “You can’t have seen that,” she whispered.
    “I did. And I saw you strip out of your stockings two days later to wade in the creek. Your skirt was hitched up past your knees.”
    “You didn’t!”
    “I did. You had dirt then on your calves, and I swear it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.” That wasn’t all he’d seen, but he wasn’t going to tell her about the leaf that had plastered itself to her thigh or that he had thought of that often at night in his lonely bed.
    She shook her head. “I was alone.”
    “I see you all the time. In my head, in my dreams, in every moment. I try not to, but it still happens. I see you spinning like a top in the creek, splashing water every which way until you nearly toppled and cracked your head open a rock.”
    “You’re guessing.”
    “You caught yourself on a tree branch with your right hand, but it was too slick. You stumbled and went sideways until your dress floated about you like petals from a flower.”
    “No—”
    “You waited for a moment, then released a near-hysterical laugh before dropping all the way in. Flat down on the bottom. Twenty minutes later, your laughter was happier. Calmer. As if the water had washed away whatever had been bothering you.”
    “I…” She swallowed and bit her lip. “How could you have seen that? How could you…” Her voice trailed away.
    “How could I know what you did? What you do when the wildness takes you and you rush outside? Sweet heaven, woman, can’t you guess? Think you are the only one going mad from the strain?”
    She blinked, and he could tell he had surprised her. “You?” she whispered.
    “Aye, me. Why do you think I work myself to the bone? It’s not for your father. It’s so I can sleep at night for an hour or two before the restlessness claims me again.” He gestured to the creek. “For nearly five years we have been coming to the same place, snapping at each other like angry turtles. Did you think it was by accident?”
    “You followed me?”
    He released a dark chuckle. “I am usually here first.”
    She looked away because she knew it was true. And for the first time ever, she must have realized that she was not so unusual as she’d thought. That there was another person—a man—who knew a wildness that ate at him.
    “Miss Josephine Powel,” he said in a low rumble.
    Her gaze hopped back to his, and she released a shocked mew of distress as he leaned even closer to her.
    “I was sixteen when I realized that there were other ways than falling into a creek bed to release the dark. Other things that tame the beast inside.”
    She licked her dry lips. He saw the flash of pink, and his groin tightened painfully. He wasn’t touching her yet. He was crowding her, but there was still space between them. Enough to run if she intended to.
    “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
    “Because I am tired of waiting for you, Miss Josephine. Now I ask you again, do you intend to marry that Scot?”
    She took a stuttered breath. “It is what my father intends.”
    “And you? What do you intend?”
    She shook her head and looked away. There were tears in her eyes, and he knew she struggled with the weight of too many expectations, of too