My Seduction by Connie Brockway Read Free Book Online

if you found some man who would accept your terms, have you thought about what sort he must be? What happens two days out, alone on the road? Your last driver was vouched for by an agency, and look at his sterling character. Any man you find willing to drive you won’t come with a recommendation.”
    She finally yanked free, or rather, he let her go so quickly that she fell back, her shoulders banging against the wall. He followed her in swiftly, looming over her, cutting her off from the rest of the room.
    “Say you were to just disappear.” His beautiful eyes rested on her like some sated predator still capable of being roused for a bit of sport. Her heart leapt in her chest. “Who’ll find you? Who’ll even look for you?”
    He leaned over her, bracing a brawny forearm on the wall above her head, his body caging her in. She twisted, pressing her cheek hard against the wall. His fingertips dangled near her temple. If she moved, he’d touch her. Panic swirled in her blood like some potent drug. His gaze slipped languidly over her face, falling to ponder on her lips. She shut her eyes, trembling. “Who’ll know where to ask or who to ask it of?”
    He could do whatever he wanted to her right here, right now, and no one would interfere. But that was his point: If she was vulnerable here, how much greater were her risks on the open road? She understood. She agreed. It still didn’t matter.
    For years, she’d searched for a way out of their present circumstance. This was the first meager opening she’d found. Fear and risk, no matter how great, weren’t enough to make her turn back. Not now.
    She opened her eyes. “I have to go.”
    “Why?” She’d thought he was done with his instruction, but apparently the lesson was not yet over, for he continued watching her mouth, as though the manner in which she formed words fascinated him.
    “Do you remember my cousin Grace?”
    “Aye?”
    “She married the marquis of Parnell’s younger brother, Charles. They lived in his family’s castle near Clyth.” The words tumbled out in a rush. “A few months ago Grace wrote that she and Charles were relocating to London.” She hazarded a glance at MacNeill’s lean face.
    “She sent a trunk filled with personal items, things of little monetary value, which she asked me to keep until their arrival.” She gestured to the open trunk. A brass telescope, several books, and a flat traveling writing case filled the top layer. “Shortly afterward, we learned that Grace and Charles had died in a boating accident.
    “The marquis is grief-stricken and has written asking that, for sentimental reasons, I return their effects. I promised that I would bring them myself.”
    “Why, Mrs. Blackburn, you are a veritable font of tender feelings,” MacNeill said wryly. He brushed away a strand of hair that caught at the corner of her mouth. “But I am sure his lordship can struggle through one winter without his brother’s bric-a-brac.”
    He was forcing confessions she did not want to make. She looked away. “The marquis and I… we met some years ago. I believe he remembers me kindly,” she said, abdicating pride to necessity. “I hope that in his sorrow, and by way of his onetime… regard, I can encourage him to become my family’s benefactor. We are Grace’s last living relations.”
    MacNeill laughed. “The poor relation? It doesn’t suit you, Mrs. Blackburn.”
    “Starvation suits me even less!” Her head snapped around. How dare he judge her? Many lived on the sufferance of family members luckier than themselves. She and her sisters wouldn’t be the first.
    He held her gaze a short moment before his mouth twisted, wordlessly conceding her the point. “The spring will serve as good a time as any for your mission.”
    “I will not have the wherewithal to make this journey come spring.”
    “I have the ready.” Abruptly, he pushed himself away from the wall, his hand dropping to his side, no longer interested in