Monsoon Mists by Christina Courtenay Read Free Book Online Page B

than she could count, no man had ever made her feel regret. Until now.
    Why should she feel anything of the sort? He was no better than the rest. Worse, in fact, because of his rude propositioning.
    But, dear Lord, he certainly stood out from the crowd.
    Zar had spotted him the moment he entered the room and had studied his progress for a while as his friend introduced him to groups of people. Tall and broad-shouldered, Kinross towered over many of the other men present, but that wasn’t what made him conspicuous. Nor was it his exceptional good looks and flashing smile, although these were obviously hard to ignore. Zarmina thought it was more to do with the latent power that radiated from him. She’d noticed he was lean, his tight-fitting clothes hinting at well-trained muscles, and under his polite exterior she sensed he was all primitive male.
    Dangerous. At least to susceptible females.
    Which was why she’d wanted to nip any possible courtship in the bud immediately.
    Only, he wasn’t interested so she’d embarrassed herself for nothing.
    Zar felt her cheeks heat up at the thought of his rude words. He’d been interested all right, but only in bedding her, something she knew other widows sometimes indulged in. She almost laughed out loud. That would be the last thing she’d ever want to do after … She cut that thought off abruptly. The past was gone. She refused to dwell on it.
    Taking another few breaths of sweet night air, she hurriedly made her way back along the roof garden towards the stairs down to the dining room. As always, she held her head high and assumed a mask of indifference. No one could hurt her now. She was her own woman and that’s how it was going to stay.
    Mr Kinross would soon be forgotten. Wouldn’t he?
    Yet when she briefly closed her eyes, his mocking smile was the image etched into her memory.

Chapter Six
    Jamie woke with a gasp and tried to suck in all the air his dreams had forced out of him. For a moment he felt faint, but somehow he managed to make his lungs do their job. Although he knew the nightmares weren’t real, he still had to fight down the panic that had him in its grip. Battling his way out from under the tangled sheets and mosquito curtains, he sat up, running shaking fingers through his shoulder-length hair. His body was covered in a sheen of perspiration, caused by a combination of alarm from the dream and the stultifying heat of the bedroom. Slowly, his heartbeat calmed down and his skin cooled off.
    ‘ Fan i helvetes jävlar !’ He swore viciously in several different languages, switching effortlessly from Swedish to English, then on into his mother’s native Dutch, followed by Hindi when he ran out of suitable epithets. The cursing didn’t make him feel any better though. What he really wanted was to have his brain cleansed of all memories of Elisabet Grahn. He wished he’d never set eyes on her at all.
    She’s dead. She’s gone, he reminded himself, but the image of her had permeated his dreams and wouldn’t leave him.
    Awake now, there was no way he’d go back to sleep again, so he pulled on a pair of breeches and went to stand on the narrow balcony outside his room. The air was cooler there, but still hot. This was India, after all, and no matter the time of day, you never froze like you did in his native Scandinavia. How he missed the cold, the crisp air, the cool breeze, the snow. But he couldn’t go back.
    Not yet.
    Perhaps never.
    And it was all Elisabet’s fault. Or perhaps it was his own?
    His tangled thoughts refused to give him respite, so he allowed himself to think back, to remember, hoping this would help put his demons to rest. He’d been such a fool …
    Riding through a deep, dark Swedish forest held no terrors for Jamie. On the contrary, he loved the feeling of solitude, of being at one with nature. The wonderful scent of pine needles and summer greenery enveloped him and he wasn’t afraid of the creatures that inhabited the woods.