My Lady, My Lord by Katharine Ashe Read Free Book Online Page A

and so long ago the memory was vague. There had been an oak tree and a ten-year-old boy lying on the ground before her in the rain. She snatched her hand away. “Do not touch me again. I cannot be seen touching you.”
    “Afraid your sterling reputation for uncompromising virginity might be tarnished, Corrie dear?” His familiar leer on her face turned Corinna’s stomach. But this time he was not scanning her body to find faults, as usual. He was looking into her eyes. Which she supposed was reasonable, since it was his body after all.
    “Be quiet. You are horrid and wretched and I cannot think straight.”
    “Ah.”
    Her gaze snapped to his. “What?”
    “You cannot think.” He folded her arms across her chest in a gesture she never in a thousand years would have made. He had absolutely no gentility. “That must be a first,” he said. “What will you do then? Feel? Act?” Her eyes—
his
now—glinted. “Do you actually know how to do either?”
    Her head was awhirl. Perhaps if she simply went back to sleep she would wake up in her own body. With a sane mind. That was it. Sleep would heal everything.
    “I am going back to bed. This is undoubtedly a mistake and tomorrow we will both awake as we ought to.” Dear God. Oh, dear God.
    She swung around and made for the gate.
    “Damn and blast,” she heard, and looked over her shoulder. The skirt of her favorite muslin gown was caught on a rose bush. He twitched it free and stormed toward her in broad strides that flipped up the skirts. He looked absolutely comical. A giggle arose in her throat, her terrifying tension desperate to break free. She choked it back jerkily.
    “Where do you think you’re going, missy?” he demanded.
    “Do not call me missy. I am nine and twenty. No one calls me missy.”
    “You are two and thirty now, and if you weep here I will personally see to it that you can never show your face again in this town.
This
face.” He pointed impatiently to his face—
hers
.
    She wrung her hands. Hands with true strength in them. Sinews, even. She shook her head. “I want myself back!”
    “I do too!”
    “What are we going to do?”
    “You’re the scholar. Think of something.”
    “I told you, I cannot think.”
    He paused, his brows scrunching. “Perhaps it’s a temporary situation. As you said, it will pass by tomorrow.” His attention shifted to the street, and he spoke quickly. “Until then, we must go along as naturally as possible. The Marquess of Drake has just now arrived to drive me to a boxing match at Gentleman Jackson’s.”
    “Boxing?” Corinna exclaimed. “Me? No. It is a heathen sport. I won’t go.”
    “You’d better, or I will.” The tone was uncompromising.
    She dug her heels into the pebbles. “No.”
    “Yes.”
    “You are bluffing.”
    “Try me.” Hazel flashed with anger she’d only ever witnessed before in his crystal blue eyes.
    Corinna blinked. She had no idea she could appear so menacing. But perhaps she couldn’t. Perhaps that was just
him,
odious, imperious Ian Chance, the man she hated with a singular passion and whose body she currently inhabited.
    This
could not
be happening
.
    She moved stiffly toward the gate. He remained inside the green.
    “Aren’t you coming?”
    “And have Stoopie see me with you? Absolutely not.”
    “You are a troll.” Moist heat prickled at the backs of her eyes.
    Panic stole into his face. “Don’t cry. Dear God, don’t cry, foolish woman.”
    She sucked back the tears. “I would not give you the satisfaction of it.” She squared her shoulders, the coat pulling tight across her chest, and turned to the street.
    He did not reply.
    ~o0o~
    Excessive opulence characterized the inside of the Marquess of Drake’s town carriage. Gold cord piped along velvet squabs, ending in showy tassels, all of it reflected in the high shine of the walls. A carriage fit for the wastrel heir to a dukedom.
    Bumping her head on the doorframe, Corinna managed to fold all of her