A Dom for Christmas by Raven McAllan Read Free Book Online Page B

There
wasn’t anything else Angie thought she could say. She looked at the floor and
rubbed her fingers over her palms, and hoped this Cam didn’t remember it was
definitely one of her shows and tells. The oh-God-I’m-nervous
one.
    “Exactly,
lady-mine.”
    There was a knock on the door.
Cam walked to it, and Angie strained to hear the low-voiced conversation he
held with whoever was in the corridor. She didn’t catch one word. Cam let the
door close and walked across the room, to hunker down until their eyes were
level.
      “Now, I want you to sit there, and do not move
until I get back. And you are on your honor not to
pleasure yourself.”
      Oh she knew he’d say that. Half of her wished
he’d not felt the need to mention it, because it was a given unless she was
told otherwise. But then, that was in the twenty-first century; she had no idea
what they did in the nineteenth.
    She nodded and he cleared his
throat. It was as good as a warning. “Yes, Sir.”
    “Good.”
    He didn’t even say where he was
going or why, but left the room quietly. Angie sighed as the door shut, and
looked around her. It was the first chance she had to take in her surroundings
properly. The room was cozy , and feminine. The wall
coverings soft shades of creams and gold, and the curtains a
deeper golden velvet. Beside the daybed, a tambour frame with a hardly
started embroidery waited for someone to add to the stitches. Not hers, then.
Angie hated even to thread a needle, let alone use one. Next to it, on a low
table, was a book, and she picked it up. She might as well read to pass the
time. It wasn’t likely it was the sort of book to get her juices flowing.
    Idly Angie flicked open the
cover and almost dropped the book. It was a diary, with Diary of Angelina McAllister written in cursive script on the first
page. Her hand shook as she turned the sheet of vellum over. She was Angel Mairi McAllister from Stirling, Scotland. Not some
nineteenth-century Angelina from heaven knows where. Her eyes blurred as she
read the first entry.
    The diary wasn’t the sort she
knew. The days were all hand numbered and sometimes it seemed the entries were
few and far between. However, one caught her eyes, and she stopped flicking and
looked at it closely: My Lord Rawcliffe can not take no for an answer. When will he realize I don’t
want to dance, walk, chat, or sup with him? Better the devil than he.
    The next few entries were about
gowns… too fussy , and balls…with the comment, so boring . That
sounded like the Angie she knew. Then one word, heavily underlined: No . Followed after a gap of several inches, and days, before a sketched
heart and the words: Thank the Lord for Camberley. He had sent Rawcliffe away with a flea in his ear and a threat of
dire retribution. I found the small wooden angel my mama gifted me on the floor
near the front door. It is said to be important to both our ancestors, but as
yet I know not why. So strange. I took her back to my
trinket box. A small thing, but something from my grandmama’s childhood I cherish.
    Angie closed the diary
thoughtfully. So Angel Dora was in this here and now, before she herself knew about it, although not as a Christmas tree ornament.
    What the hell was going on? She
looked at the quill and ink on the inkstand doubtfully. As a left-handed person
in everything, ink and writing was a massive no-no. Argh, did they still persecute corrie-fisted people in whenever I am ?
All sort of horror stories came back to Angie and crowded into her mind. She
put the diary on the table and clenched her hands together. She couldn’t use a
pen of any description. She’d end up with ink stains everywhere. A thought
struck her. If that diary was written by Angelina, and she was Angelina, where were the ink blots?
    Angie leaned back and shut her
eyes. So much to process and so little to go on. Angel
Dora had to be involved, as did that bugger Stuart Rawcliffe ,
and of course her beloved Cam.
    Did