A Marquess for Christmas by Vivienne Westlake Read Free Book Online Page A

hummed as she
worked. It was a very old song that she’d learned as a girl. Sometimes her
mother would sing it as she stitched.
    “Come live with me and be my love and we
will all the pleasures prove. The hill and valley, dale and field, and all the
craggy mountains yield.”
    She
washed his arms, noting each twist and turn of muscle. She even tested it with
her finger to see if it was as firm as it appeared. Nothing about him was
soft— except for his lips and the silky threads of his hair.
    She
brushed the towel over his neck and down to the exposed skin at the opening of
his tunic. The hair there was fine. She couldn’t help but stare as she swept
over his chest. His nipples were wide, but tightened into little nubs when she
touched them.
    What
would it feel like to run her palms over them? Would they react to her as they
did to the damp cloth? What about her mouth?
    Violet
turned away and blushed. She closed her eyes and willed herself to remember him
fighting off the thief and the moment when he’d taken the fateful blow. She
needed to focus on her task and not on the yearnings she felt for a man she
barely knew.
    She
might be fantasizing about a man of base morals or a man with a wife and four
children. Or what if he was a clergyman? That she doubted considering his skill
with weapons and his readiness to fight, but what gentleman would watch an
innocent woman get attacked by thieves and not come to her rescue?
    A man does what needs must . Even a man
of the cloth will take up a pistol if his life or his country demanded it. She
had seen boys barely old enough to carry a gun with gaping holes in their chest
and villages ravaged and burned in the war.
    And
this man would die like the rest if she did not do her duty to him. He’d saved
her and now she must do the same for him.
    With
such thoughts distracting her, she didn’t realize she’d paused her singing
until she heard a low, gravelly voice.
    “Sing.”
    She
looked down to see dark eyes watching her.
    “You
are awake!”
    “Sing,”
he repeated, but he’d barely finished the word when a ragged cough took over
his body.
    “A belt of straw and ivy buds, with coral
clasps and amber studs, and if these pictures may thee move, come live with me
and—”
    “Be
my love.” His voice was hoarse, even more than she expected for someone who’d
slept for two days. She lifted from the bed to pour water from the pitcher into
a cup.
    When
she lifted the cup to his lips, he coughed and it dribbled down his chin. “Easy.”
They tried again, but still, most of the water ended up down his chest. His
tunic absorbed the excess liquid and clung tightly to his body, so she could
see every line and curve. His nipples hardened again.
    “Let
me try this another way,” she said. This time, she dipped her fingers into the
cup and let the water drip into his mouth.
    He
opened wide for more. She leaned closer, her bosom near his face, and poured
more water from her fingers.
    After
the third time, he put her two fingers to his lips and sucked them. A flash of
heat shot through her limbs. If she’d been standing, she would have faltered
and lost her balance.
    His
mouth was hot and she suspected it had little to do with his fever.
    “More,”
he whispered. He stared at her and she could not move, could not speak.
    There
was a knock behind them and that jolted her out of her frozen state. Miriam
stood in the doorway with ice and more water. The man groaned.
    She
motioned for the maid to come in. As soon as the girl was close, Violet took a
tiny chip of ice and put it in the man’s mouth.
    The
ice would help his thirst, but she also was afraid for him to speak. The need
in his eyes was too real, too close to the desire that she felt. But he was a
stranger. A beautiful, dark, bewitching stranger who had risked his life for
her, yet she knew almost nothing about him.
    A
fact that she could remedy. No. What was she thinking? He was wounded,
disoriented, and who knew if he mistook