Dark Fires by Brenda Joyce Read Free Book Online

ladies and gentlemen. It was unbelievable that the earl would come in from the fields, dressed like a field hand, and dine that way.
    He had also tracked dirt down the entire hallway.
    It was unbelievable.
    Then she recalled that he had been raised far from civilization, among savages, most likely, in the wilds of Texas. She couldn’t stay angry. He just needed to learn the social graces. She imagined teaching him. And just as quickly shoved that disturbing thought away.
    Her mind raced. What if she just appeared at the table and joined him? What could he do? Yell? Quell her with a freezing look? Order her away? He would do the last, she thought with dismay. Order her to the nursery, and the humiliation would be unbearable. But … if she didn’t try she would never know.
    Impulsive, Jane , an inner voice chastised. Do not be impulsive—look at the trouble it always gets you in.
    She ignored her logical self. Lifting her skirt, she tiptoed down the hall. She paused near the open doors, listening, but he made no sound. Then Thomas asked him if he would like more wine and he grunted some reply. Jane winced at his manners. He needed a wife, she thought. A wife would never let him be so uncouth.
    And she imagined herself dining with him as his wife.
    In her fantasy, she was as gorgeous as her mother, not petite and slender but lush and voluptuous and dressed in satin and jewels. And the earl—he was dressed in a black evening suit with tails, looking magnificently handsome, and he was adoring her with his eyes, hanging onto every word she spoke, every trill of laughter.
    She peeped inside.
    He sat alone at the head of the vast table, which was long enough to seat thirty or forty guests. His solitary presence in the large room was suddenly significant and wrenching. Never had a man seemed so alone. Jane had never been lonely in her entire life until she had been forced to leave London and go to the parsonage. The contrast then had been gruesome, making her understand loneliness better than anyone who had never experienced the warmth of love and family. Now she watched the earl and felt tears rise—tears of compassion for him. In that instant, she knew, with some timeless, ageless instinct, that the earl was more than alone, he was unbearably lonely. She felt anguished.
    He lifted his head, stopped his chewing, and stared at her.
    Jane felt a surging of hope, and she waited for him to ask her to join him. She even smiled, tentatively.
    He stared and said nothing.
    Her courage failed. Jane turned and fled.

8

    There was no way he could sleep.
    It was late that night, and the Earl of Dragmore reigned alone in his library. One solitary lamp lighted the room from the corner of his desk. He stood in the shadows by the stone hearth, brooding, whiskey in hand. From outside, a hound howled, the sound aching with its loneliness.
    Nick downed the whiskey abruptly.
    He moved to refill his glass. He could not shake Jane’s image from his mind. He was angry because of it. He did not want to be haunted by her angelic face and innocent eyes; he did not want to see that fragile smile as she hovered uncertainly in the doorway of the dining room, waiting, he knew, for him to invite her in. He hadn’t, and now he felt like the lowest kind of heel. He had seen her face crumble before she turned and left. He had also seen her slender shoulders proudly squared.
    And he had seen a lot more.
    He had seen the way she looked at him in the hallway. Christ! He knew she had no idea of how she’d been looking at him—and where. Her perusal had been intent, mesmerized—and undeniably sensual. She had stared at his chest, his belly, his groin. With a sharp, indrawn breath, Nick reached down and tugged at his breeches to ease his discomfort.
    Shit.
    This was all he needed. To be the object of a schoolgirl’s crush. She was a schoolgirl. She was seventeen. Only seventeen.
    And old enough to be married.
    “She’s my goddamn ward,” he cried aloud,