Read Online The Lady Series by Denise Domning - Free Book Online

smile faded. There was something strange in the way she watched him, as if she thought to find some message hidden in his eyes. The sensation was unnerving and oddly intimate.
    Still she watched him, until her attention felt like a touch against his skin and stirred the most carnal of Kit’s desires. Lady Montmercy was wrong. Sir Amyas’s granddaughter was no Puritan miss, for no religious woman looked at a man like that. Triumph rose from the ashes of certain defeat. She found him attractive.
    A different sort of smile turned Kit’s lips this time. My, but lust was a fine thing to feel, especially when the bedchamber was just where he meant to take this woman. The seducing of Mistress Anne Blanchemain was going to be pleasant, very pleasant indeed.

     
    Anne stared at the gentleman in the gold-spangled doublet. Unlike every man around him no greed shone from his marvelous green eyes. Instead what she saw was a welcoming kindness, as if he commiserated over the ordeal of her introduction. His compassion teased her into further study.
    What an interesting face he had, not truly handsome but compelling. His features were long and thin, his nose arching forcefully out from below his brow. Perhaps he knew this about his face for he wore his golden-brown hair slightly longer than was the fashion and kept his chin beard neatly trimmed to emphasize his well-made mouth, an affectation that served to soften an otherwise harsh face. But his eyes, they were fine indeed. Set beneath gently arching brows, their color was a deep and true green.
    An instant later something dark and warm glimmered into life in the depths of his gaze. A slow smile uncurled along his lips, then his eyelids lowered, just a little. Anne caught her breath in surprise. He found her attractive.
    Deep in the core of her being an answering flame woke, stirring her long banked desires. The heat grew, bringing with it the image of this man pressing his mouth to hers. Although it had been almost seven years since the beginning and end of her fall from innocence, her body hadn’t forgotten the pleasure of a man’s touch.
    She stomped on her reaction. Until she was certain he was the man she needed there’d be no such thoughts. Tearing her attention from him, Anne forced herself to survey the remainder of the crowded chamber and her mouth bent in amused disbelief.
    A rainbow ran riot among England’s highest born men. The courtiers gleamed jewel bright. Indeed, one man wore a coat, doublet, breeches, all in the most incredible shade of lavender. Now, if only they smelled as sweet as they looked. Beneath the stink of a hundred different perfumes, the room reeked of too many warm bodies in too small a place.
    Anne coughed lightly against the mélange. Although it was but a small sound it jarred the men from their greed-induced trances. As one, the courtiers turned their fickle attention back to their comrades and enemies. In the space of a breath the Presence Chamber once again thundered with the sound of their voices. Relieved to no longer be the center of attention, Anne let her attention come to rest upon the cushioned chair beneath the silver canopy. Here would England’s queen sit.
    Anne’s stomach set to tumbling and jumping like a hare with the hounds after it. She found herself hoping that her mother’s cousin, Mistress Mary Radcliffe, would prove as kind and true a friend to her as she had been to Anne’s recently departed sister, Eliza. Mistress Mary was the oldest of the queen’s maids. To have even a potential companion among all these strangers would be reassuring, indeed.
    Sir Amyas leaned close. “Smile,” he hissed, jerking his head to the left, “here comes Lord Deyville to meet you.”
    Anne looked in the direction her grandsire indicated. Dressed all in rich black save for his wide lace ruff, a man with a crooked nose worked his way through the crowd toward them. His cap wasn’t big enough to hide his balding pate, his hair having receded