Lord Haversham Takes Command by Heidi Ashworth Read Free Book Online Page B

under the table to come to rest against Mira’s feet, fetchingly encased in kid boots he noticed to be covered in the sweetest ribbon roses. Before he could formulate a plan, the owner of the boots lowered her face, pale and wide-eyed, beneath the table.
    “Harry! What is happening?” she asked in a harsh whisper, the sound of sobs and screaming a crazed din in the background.
    With her fear-filled face so close to his own, Harry was bereft of thought. His wants were in command of his actions, and what he wanted was to keep her safe. What he longed for, and had for quite some time, was to have her close. Rising to a crouch, he took the hand that held aloft the tablecloth and tugged her down to the floor at his side. She opened her mouth to say he knew not what, for he quickly hushed her so as to better determine the state of affairs beyond the confines of the table legs. He heard Sir Anthony tell his wife to get down, then commend the safekeeping of his women folk to, of all people, the now hysterical George who called out to his cousin not to leave him. If there were a more useless article in the room, it would have to be Higgins, whom, he assumed, had taken a bullet. Harry fervently hoped Higgins had made his escape, but either way, Harry was on his own.
    “Harry!” Mira cried. She rose to her knees to face him, and he became suddenly aware that the thundering of his heart was not from fear but brought on by the proximity of the redheaded beauty at his side whose gaze, even now, met his in a frankly disconcerting way. The danger that awaited him beyond the tablecloth was nothing compared to the danger beneath, and his face burned with the turn his thoughts had taken.
    Yet, he could not deny the pure beauty of his situation. Their position afforded them a privacy he might never again know in her presence. He would not forgive himself if he did not take advantage of what could be his only opportunity to demonstrate his yearning. Finally, tormented by conflicting desires, he threw caution to the wind and kissed her full on her bow-shaped mouth.
    Harry wasn’t sure if the ringing in his ears had been as loud the last time she had slapped him; her petite hand couldn’t have been much smaller when he had kissed her in days of old. However, it definitely pained him more this time, of that he was certain.
    “Why, Harry Haversham, you haven’t changed a bit!”
    Alarmed by the way the curve of her lips belied the smolder in her eyes, Harry delayed his response. He narrowed his gaze upon her and fell to pondering the solutions to a number of difficulties: how to gracefully extricate himself from his hidey-hole without getting shot; how to get a heavily blushing Mira from under the table without anyone guessing what had transpired; and how to convince the love of his life that he was a mere fop and a fribble without forever putting paid to his intended role as the love of hers, each of which had to be accomplished in a trice or all was lost.
    “Pray, I do say,
pray
forgive me, Miss Crenshaw!” Harry squeaked. “I suppose I must have got caught up in the moment. I thought perhaps I was to die this very moment, and as I have never kissed a girl … ”
    “Never?” Mira sputtered.
    Hiding a coy smile behind his fingers, Harry thought furiously, mentally mapping out the location of Marcross, who must never know anything of what had just happened at his feet; Sir Anthony, who was Harry’s best hope for an ally, but who Harry presumed had gone in pursuit of the shooter; Lady Crenshaw, who was even now beginning to lift the tablecloth from the far side of the table; and his would-be assailant who could be just about anywhere, all of which were paltry concerns compared to producing a suitable reply to Mira’s challenge.
    “Uh, well … Oh! Was that
you
?” Harry asked, his eyes wide with innocence all the while feeling himself the vilest of creatures, the kind who could forget kissing such a girl as Mira, young as she had