Lady Midnight by Amanda Mccabe Read Free Book Online

fanning out from the edges of his eyes. Eyes that Kate could tell, even at this distance, were blue. A sharp, piercing pale blue, vivid as the Italian sky.
    For one endless second, suspended out of time, Kate forgot to breathe. The moor whirled around her, dipping and swaying dizzily, until she was forced to close her eyes against it. She feared, knew, she would fall—until a strong hand caught her arm, steadying her.
    Her eyes flew open, and she stared directly up into that sky-blue gaze.
    His hand on her arm was so warm, burning, even through her sleeve and his glove. It felt safe. She had an overpowering longing to lean into him, into that heat, and she even swayed toward his broad chest before the deep flow of his voice stopped her.
    "Are you ill, madam?" he asked in obvious concern. It was a lovely voice, deep and slightly rough but warm, just like a prosecco on a chilly night. It matched the man. But it was not an Italian voice, lilting and flowing. The vowels were clipped, sharp with upper-class accents as Edward's had been. As Julian Kirkwood's.
    Somehow, that added to this man's powerful attraction, his aura of quiet strength—and made him slightly dangerous to her. She had come to England to leave old ways, old temptations and lessons, behind. She hadn't even looked at a man with attraction since her near drowning. She even thought those ways were buried beneath the waves.
    But old temptations were not so far behind her as she wished. She would have to be careful.
    "I—I am quite well, thank you," she murmured, stepping back from him. Her voice sounded weak and breathless, and she couldn't quite bring herself to look directly up into those heaven-colored eyes. So she stared at the knot in his cravat. But there was nothing she could do about his warmth, which beckoned to her like a mischievous demon.
    "You're trembling," he said. "It's too cold for you to be standing about here."
    Cold? No. It was not cold here. It was as hot as a Mediterranean island. The trembling came from deep inside herself.
    "Obviously there was some mishap with the post chaise. It was criminal of the driver to leave you here all alone, madam!" he continued, his voice full of indignation.
    "Oh, no, it was my fault. You see, I cannot ride a horse—" Her words broke off on a gasp as he suddenly pulled off his greatcoat and swept it about her shoulders.
    She was completely surrounded now by that heat, by his clean scent of pine soap, starch, wool, and—and something deeper. Darker.
    "That is no excuse for the driver," he said, drawing the coat closer about her. The leather of his glove brushed her throat, the tender underside of her jaw. A new shiver went right down to her very toes, making them tingle inside her thick stockings and half boots. "But this should make you warmer."
    "Now you will be cold!" she protested, and tried to give the coat back.
    His clasp tightened, holding the wool against her. "I'm used to the Yorkshire wind. You're not, madam."
    "How can you tell?" she asked, chagrined. She had worked so hard to fit in with English ways!
    He smiled at her, that bold, white grin she had thought an angel's smile when she first saw it. Now she knew she was wrong. It was a pirate's smile, one designed to draw hapless maidens across perilous oceans to his side, no matter what the danger.
    But Kate was no hapless maiden. She might still be a virgin, yet she had never been hapless. She had seen too much, learned too much, in her mother's house. Men were to be laughed at, humored, amused, and used.
    But here, at this moment, she felt very young and foolish. Hapless, helpless, before a pirate's smile.
    Don't be a fool, she told herself sternly. Don't ruin this new life before it has even begun.
    "I know most of the people in the neighborhood," the pirate angel answered, seemingly oblivious to her own inner turmoil. "I have never met you before, or I'm sure I would remember. Indeed I would."
    Kate laughed at this little flattery, at the