Captive Bride by Katharine Ashe Read Free Book Online

Thomas’s words stumbled. Slowly his eyes went wide.
    “Oh, good God,” he uttered. “I didn’t even think.”
    Tip was not as satisfied by the look of shocked dismay on the other man’s face as he would have liked. It didn’t matter that this whole cock-and-pony story wasn’t real. Thomas believed it to be, and so his unthinking behavior was no less noxious. But he rarely ever thought of his sister before himself. He used her when he needed her, the same way her entire family did. Except perhaps Georgianna . Tip knew that Georgie cared a great deal about Bea. Unfortunately, that caring did Bea little good all the way across the Irish Sea.
    “It is a lucky thing for you that this is all a hoax, Thomas,” he said, “or I would be hard pressed not to level you right now.”
    Thomas’s brow lowered. “This is no hoax. It’s perfectly real. Mark my words, you’ll see—or hear, rather, because he isn’t visible to anyone but maidens.” He moved toward the door. “I must go speak with Bronwyn now. That is, Lady Bronwyn. She said something else about the curse, a detail, I can’t quite recall, but I think perhaps— I don’t know. I will see you at dinner, Cheriot ,” he said with quick nerves and disappeared through the door.
    Tip stared at the opening. Thomas Sinclaire was an inconsiderate pup. And his ghost story was a Banbury tale.
    But Bea believed him. Recalling her bright eyes and quickened breaths sent hot pressure into Tip’s groin again. He hoped to Hades he had managed to keep the desire from his gaze. But the moment had surprised him. She surprised him.
    If he were honest, she usually did. Each time he made the journey to Yorkshire to feast his senses upon her for a few days, she revealed something of herself he had never seen before. Another tantalizing hint.
    It had happened like that the evening in Aldborough four years earlier.
    He had gone to York on a whim, wanting to see her but not realizing quite how desperately. He arrived late at the assembly rooms to find her dancing, graceful ease in each step. But he already knew she danced well. He’d been to plenty of parties she attended in London, paying her his careless attentions for two years when he was on holiday from university.
    On this night she sparkled in the crowded, overheated hall, a shining opal amongst quartz. As the patterns of the set took her about the room, she watched her partner and the other dancers. Eyes luminous, she sought their gazes, and when they met she smiled, her doe’s eyes lingering with pleasure and gentle longing, her rose-hued lips curved in a reflection of enchantment.
    Watching her, something had tightened in Tip’s chest, something vital and alive. Already at three and twenty he’d tried to dampen that sort of feeling. He had seen the damage it could do to a man. But staring at Bea that night, he let it have rein.
    Then she laughed—at her partner’s witticism, perhaps—throwing her head back with full-throated delight, her lovely neck a column of warm cream, and Tip could not breathe. When the set ended, in a haze of bemusement he stepped forward. Her gaze met his, illuminated with dazzling joy, and Tip lost his heart.
    He realized only later that night, when she refused his hand, that in point of fact he had lost his heart to her the moment he’d met her years earlier.
    “You gaze at her with lust.”
    Tip started out of his memories. He’d had the very thought mere moments ago. But the voice that spoke did not come from within his head. Instead, it echoed through the chamber from no clear direction, low and gravelly, and peculiarly accented. Not altogether English.
    Or, rather, not recently English.
    He pivoted around slowly on his heels, studying the tapestries draped over the heavy walls, the ancient carved furniture. Nothing stirred in the empty chamber, no feet beneath the wall coverings, no figure crouched behind a table or chair.
    Tip folded his arms.
    “I beg your pardon?” he ventured.