Read Online The Sweetest Revenge by Dawn Halliday - Free Book Online Page B

believed possible. If he was so reduced after one day, what would he be like in a week? A weeping, begging disaster?
    No . Not if he had any say in it. He straightened his spine.
    Miss Juliette tried again. “You said you considered monogamy, but then you said you would never have just one woman. You contradict yourself, my lord.”
    “Perhaps I do.” If she could see his eyes beneath the blindfold, she would see they shot daggers. “But I fail to see how it could be any of your concern.”
    “I am sorry. I just want to understand why…how….” She faltered, then stopped speaking altogether.
    “Do not try to understand me, Miss Juliette. It is an impossibility, even for myself.”
    “But that is why we are all here, Lord Leothaid, to understand you and to help you to understand us,” she whispered.
    “Then Mistress Jane is correct. We will be here a very, very long time.”
    “Do you really want that?”
    “I do not.”
    With a soft sigh and a rustle of silk, Miss Juliette lowered herself beside him on the chaise. Mistress Jane still pressed against his body on his other side.
    “I do not mean to upset you, my lord,” Miss Juliette said.
    What an outrageous thing to emerge from a villain’s lips, from someone who had captured him, chained him, and conspired to feed him appalling chicken.
    He took a deep breath, preparing to speak, but the words froze on his lips. Something about her…
    The way she had spoken, that hint of a…of an accent…
    He inched closer to her and inhaled deeply. Her scent…
    The air in the room thinned, then vanished altogether. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move.
    It all came together, a coalescing boulder of awareness in his chest.
    Miss Juliette was her . The woman from his dreams.
    No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
    But it was. Only she possessed that particular scent—that gentle flowery smell with something unexpected, something wild, just beneath. It was faint, but he knew it. It smelled of heather. Of his home in the Highlands. The scent fit her perfectly. Like her, it was reserved and unassuming on the outside, wild and carefree within.
    She gasped, and he felt her stiffening beside him.
    The world tilted on its axis. He had last heard her gasp seven years ago. It was the noise she made when she came.
    Leo swayed, tried to regain his balance, then had the distinct impression of falling, flying off the edge of a cliff, hurtling toward jagged rocks below.
    It was impossible.
    It was undeniable.
    It all made sense, yet it made no sense whatsoever. She was dead.
    His mouth moved like that of a landed fish, gaping then closing, unable to summon a word.
    Her name. He’d avoided it like the plague. He never spoke it, had disciplined himself to never even think it. Now it came to him like a soft caress. It curled into his mind, steadied him, and finally revived his breath.
    “Belle?”
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Isabelle stood before the fireplace in Susan’s gilded drawing room. Tremors rolled through her body. She clenched her hands together to keep from ripping off her gown, petticoat, and stays. They had never felt so constrictive as they did at this moment. She just needed to breathe, to take in a lungful of pure, clean air.
    Susan, unruffled as always, glided beside her. She squeezed Isabelle’s forearm. “It is going to be all right, dearest.”
    Isabelle stared at her arm, then at Susan. She took a ragged breath. “He knew me.”
    “Yes, he did. That was unfortunate.”
    Bile rose in Isabelle’s throat. Unfortunate? It was much worse than unfortunate—it was a disaster.
    She sank to her knees. The pattern on Susan’s Turkish carpet swam before her eyes. Her cheeks felt like they might burst into flames. What had she done? Had she thought this to be some kind of game? The abduction of a lord was a crime punishable by death, and she had willingly participated in it. The ruse was over. She hadn’t thought of the consequences of her actions, not seriously.