Lady Midnight by Amanda Mccabe Read Free Book Online Page B

courtesan's daughter, beneath the gray governess?
    Kate shoved those unwelcome qualms away and slid her gloved hand into the crook of his elbow. A shiver undulated over her, but she took another deep breath and stilled the movement before he could feel it. They moved down the slope to his waiting curricle, their steps well matched. There was hardly a sign of the slight limp she had noticed earlier.
    She studied him surreptitiously from the corner of her eye. With a start, she noticed something she had missed in her bizarre, overwhelming enthrallment. His cheek was scarred with a long, thick, pale pink line slicing from temple to mouth, with a few smaller flecks surrounding it. The shocking sight made her own scarred cheek itch and burn in memory, until she had to rub hard at it with her fingers.
    What could have happened to this man, to mar his angel's beauty? Had it scarred his heart, as well? Had it changed his very world—as Kate's own injuries had?
    She found she ached to know these things, to know everything about him. An overwhelming temptation came over her as he lifted her up onto the high carriage seat. A temptation to lean down and press a hundred kisses, a thousand caresses, on those scars, until they both forgot all the pain of the past.
    Kate sighed deeply as she settled onto the seat, arranging her respectable gray skirts around her. Oh, she was truly in trouble now.

Chapter 3

    He was in so much trouble. Michael knew this as surely as he knew his own name. It had been a long time, a veritable lifetime, since he had felt this hot rush of immediate attraction toward a woman. This imperative urge to hold, to kiss, to breathe in her rosy perfume, her very essence, and absorb her into himself.
    Why did it have to be with the new governess? A lady he would have to see every single day? A lady who was completely forbidden, thanks to his own iron resolve never to take advantage of any female under his roof. A lady who was, damn it all, a lady.
    Mrs. Brown's waist was slim and supple beneath his hands as he lifted her into the curricle, her weight as light as a snowflake. She wore no stays beneath her plain garments—she obviously needed none. For one second, his cheek brushed the soft wool of her skirt. She smelled of rose water and her own sweet female fragrance. It made him ache and stir deep inside, where he thought surely his soul was frozen forever.
    Once she was seated, her hand, gloved in butter-soft pink kid, lingered gently on his shoulder. "Grazie," she whispered.
    He glanced up at her, drawn by the husky Italian accent. Her dark brown eyes were wide, her rose-pink lips parted on an indrawn breath. She was not unaffected by their nearness, either. Knowing that, seeing it, sent a rush of powerful, primitive masculine satisfaction jolting through him. It took all his strength to keep from pulling her pretty face down to his, kissing those lush, parted lips until they tumbled together to the ground, sighs and breaths mingling in the cool air....
    No, Michael thought regretfully, shoving those enticing images away. He was no longer the reckless, wild youth he had once been, who grabbed what he wanted no matter who might be hurt. He had learned his hard lesson with his sweet Caroline, and he couldn't afford to be like that anymore. He had responsibilities, and his family's reputation to uphold.
    Kate Brown was lovely—there was no doubt about that. The loveliest woman he had seen since coming to Yorkshire. Her skin was milky white, but her hair and eyes were dark as night. Those eyes, with their coffee color, tilted up faintly at the corners, giving her an alluring, almost Eastern aspect. When those eyes turned in his direction they beckoned to him, drawing him closer, teasing him with glimpses of her inner self. They told him she was not merely a beautiful doll, as many ladies fluttering around the ballrooms of London seemed. She had an indefinable elegance, a sensuality as subtle as her rose perfume, that