Angel In My Bed by Melody Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

hovered over the channel. Catching herself on the window casement, she looked down into the empty courtyard below, then leaned nearer to the glass, searching for a way to escape. Her gaze ran up the length of heavy draperies across the thick wooden dowel and down the other side. She tested their strength before turning her attention to the armoire for suitable clothing. She would have been better off taking her chances with Kinley.
    She had to escape now. Her father was out there.
    He frightened her. Her father finding Nathanial terrified her.
    She had known people who had no sense of moral right and wrong. She had known people who drank because their bodies craved the libation or opium-addicted sufferers who could not live out a day without the drug. As a little girl, she met many of them in her father’s circle of acquaintances. Buther father suffered no such moral ambiguity. He knew the difference between right and wrong. He just didn’t care. Playing the game had been his opium. Name the hunt and it became his sport. He’d always loved the chase, the game of fox and hound, cat and mouse.
    He and David were alike in that respect.
    â€œDamn you, Donally!” Frustrated beyond belief, she crossed her arms over her midriff, turned back into the room, and froze.
    David stood with his back against the door, looking much as he had that morning when she’d thrown herself naked at him. “You would not have escaped Kinley, Meg.”
    â€œWhy is that?”
    â€œBecause I would have been with him.”
    She gritted her teeth, truly aware of how much she disliked him. The firelight burned in the dark depths of his eyes as he continued to watch her. “Who is Nellis Munro to you?”
    â€œHe is Sir Henry’s nephew. He wants control of all Munro holdings.”
    David pushed off the door. “All?”
    She was unable to meet his eyes. “Does everyone know that you and I…?”
    â€œShare the sanctity of wedlock? My circumstance is no secret.”
    â€œThen they must appreciate the terrible sacrifice you made for God and queen.”
    He stopped in front of her. “Not all of it was a sacrifice, Meg.”
    She tried to push past him. “I don’t want Sir Henry involved. You can’t protect him. My father is a master of disguise. He could walk into a room and his own mother wouldn’t know him unless he wanted her to know—”
    â€œWhat happened between you and your father?” He touched the bruise on her temple.
    The contact was hardly threatening; yet she recoiled. “Why are you doing this?”
    â€œLook at me.” He slid his palm around her jaw and tilted her face. She could have sworn she heard his heartbeat pounding almost as loud as her own. “Give me your word you won’t run,” he said. “Or I will take you to Kinley tomorrow and do this myself.”
    He would, too, she realized, knowing she would promise him nothing. Margaret Faraday still had it in her to fight him, even if Victoria Munro did not. For Meg, being the more streetwise of her two selves, trusted David no farther than she could throw him. But if he was anything at all, he was a man who carried through with his threats.
    â€œWhat are the odds,” she asked, “that some jeweler would recognize that earring, then bring it to Kinley, the very person who would know what to do with that piece?”
    â€œI only know that Kinley received the original before he came to me.”
    â€œThe original?” It had been so dark that night Stillings had come to the cottage. She hadn’t noticed that the earring was fake. “Of course, you wouldn’t hand a priceless antiquity belonging to the treasury of India over to someone like Stillings.”
    â€œThe forgery was very well done. Don’t berate yourself over the fact you didn’t recognize the earring was a fake and got yourself captured. Nor does it take away the value of the