Read Online Miss Antiqua's Adventure by Fran Baker - Free Book Online

such thing, for she would not make a match with him under any circumstances.
    Instead, she braced her elbows upon the tabletop and, resting her chin atop the flat of her palms, inquired with lively interest, “Are you foxed, sir?”
    A frown passed through his blue eyes.
    Disregarding his reaction, she continued, “I must say, you don’t look the least bit castaway, but that is quite the second bottle of wine you have emptied, you know. My father would have been thoroughly disguised by the end of the first.”
    “It is generally understood, my love, that I am not cup-shot until after the third bottle,” he coolly explained.
    “You must be deep-cut, if you think to marry me.”
    At this pronouncement, Vincent pushed back his chair and stood. “It’s time you retire. We leave early tomorrow and I’ll not be kept waiting while you sleep.”
    With a hand lightly, but firmly, under her elbow, he guided her across the room, then paused at the door. By some trick of the wavering candlelight, his expression appeared softened. She swallowed in nervous anticipation as he placed two fingers beneath the curve of her chin and tilted her head up. She felt his feathery touch as heavily as if he were gripping her, locking her within his hold, and she thought, she tried not to hope, he would kiss her. Her lips quivered.
    Vincent studied her shadowed eyes, her trembling mouth and felt an unexpected desire heat up within him. His face darkened as he cursed his own lack of control. She was an innocent! He would do what he knew he must, but he had not lost all honor during his years of reckless living. He would not take advantage of this naive young lady. He withdrew his fingers from the softness of her skin.
    “Do not worry,” he said, his voice oddly roughened. “I shall make no husbandly demands upon you. I offer you only the protection of my name, such as it is.”
    Not trusting her voice, Antiqua returned no reply before slipping quickly up the stairs. She shut the door of her chamber hard, but that failed to shut out the image of his handsome face. She leaned against the wood and tried frantically to understand why his merest touch, look, presence could so disconcert her. She berated herself for responding to his practiced charm and reminded herself that spies must be very learned in the art of making love to a woman. No doubt he merely meant to retrieve the information he knew she possessed, even if he had to wed her to get it. The thought burst upon her as wildly as her pounding pulse, and her ready temper exploded.
    That she had nearly forgotten his perfidy in the face of his overwhelming attraction added shame to her fury, increasing it to a white heat. Antiqua vowed to never again succumb to his charm, be it ever so beguiling. She would outwit him, she would!
    “Why, Miss, whatever are you frowning for?”
    Antiqua focused on her maid standing near the bed. “That man—that man means to marry me!” she announced in a voice filled with loathing.
    “I knew him for a right one,” Lucy said with a shrewd nod of her becapped head.
    “Are you mad?” Antiqua demanded, now thoroughly incensed. Striding angrily forth, she released her pent-up emotions. “Depend upon it, Lucy, he means to serve me some trick! And do not be looking down your nose like that. Oh, he made some very pretty speeches about protecting my name and saving my reputation—such a very chivalrous murderer, is he not?—but it must be that he has learned, or he suspects, that Allen gave his papers into my keeping. Perhaps he actually would marry me in an attempt to wrest them from me. I certainly would not put any wicked, devious idea past him!”
    “That’s as may be, Miss,” Lucy said as she collected shawl, ribbon and dress from the floor where Antiqua had strewn them in her wrath. “But you can’t deny as how Master Vincent is in the right of it.”
    Before she disappeared into a voluminous flannel nightdress, Antiqua’s mutinously extended lower