Read Online Lost Lady by Jude Deveraux - Free Book Online

there’s a lot of her in the right places.”
    â€œStop larkin’ about. Let’s have at her.”
    Before Regan was aware of what was about to happen to her, just as she seemed to hear Travis’s words about men forcing her to do what they had done together, one of the sailors gave her a firm push, and she fell backward over the men behind her. With one futile effort at a scream, she tried to right herself, but the men under her, scrambling away, held her under an ocean of grabbing, exploring hands. Over her, grinning wildly, were the sailors.
    â€œNow, let’s see what’s under those pretty skirts.”
    The man put his hand on her skirt, and Regan kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling. Her arms were pinned above her head by the men behind her, and the second after she kicked her ankles were grabbed, legs pulled wide apart.
    â€œYou won’t kick me, missy,” laughed another sailor, grabbing the edge of her skirt.
    One second he was above her, smiling at her terror, enjoying her struggles against the hands that held her, and the next he was flying through the air, and grabbing his shoulder, which was quickly reddening. The sound of the shot seemed to come after the sailor flew away.
    Two more shots rang across the tops of the men’s heads before they began to react to something besides their vicious sport.
    Regan, still held by the men, was first aware of their silence, and when she felt their grip loosening she kicked out, freeing one leg. The next moment an angry, violent Travis stepped over her, and before the men could comprehend what was happening, Travis grabbed arms, necks, belts, whatever was available, and sent sailors and waterfront riffraff flying through the air.
    Shaking with fear, Regan lay still as, one by one, every hand was taken from her body. Travis straddled her hips, his back to her, a pistol in each hand. “Anyone else like to try for the lady?” he challenged.
    Backing away, looking like the untamed, cowardly scum they were, they muttered at Travis for spoiling their fun, but no one openly opposed the dangerous-looking American.
    Sticking the pistols into his belt, Travis turned and looked down at Regan, watched her panting with fear, and quickly noted that most of her clothes were intact. With one swift gesture he bent and threw her over one shoulder like a sack of flour.
    The breath nearly leaving her, Regan slammed against the back of him. “Put me down!” she demanded.
    Travis gave her buttocks one hard smack, which was fortunately padded by the thick velvet, before nodding to the two other men who still held pistols on the cowering crowd, and started back toward the inn.
    One of the sailors, the one Regan had kicked in the eye, yelled after Travis that Yanks certainly knew how to treat women, and the others laughed, glad they’d had no fight with the angry man. The sailor Travis had shot limped away, back toward the inner structures of the waterfront.
    Regan didn’t say another word to Travis as she bounced along in the awkward, embarrassing position, and she was glad her long hair hid her face from passersby, especially people at the inn. By the time he’d climbed the stairs and reached the room they’d shared, she was ready to tell him what she thought of his treatment of her, that he was little better than the ruffians on the street.
    But her courage left her when Travis slammed her into the bed so hard she dove through a foot of down-filled mattress, striking the rope lacing below. Gasping for air, she surfaced, pushed her hair out of her face, and looked up into Travis’s livid, raging temper.
    He didn’t give her a chance to speak. “Do you know how I found you?” he said through clenched teeth, the muscles of his jaw working vigorously, hands on hips. “I hired men to walk the waterfront and to report to me when there was a commotion. I knew if I waited you’d show up, and when you did