Nicola Cornick, Margaret McPhee, et al by Christmas Wedding Belles Read Free Book Online

him, nor make up for
the damage he had done to her in the past. So it was better that he kept his
peace and let her go.
    The anchor was lowered and a rope ladder thrown over the side.
Lucinda insisted on climbing down it herself, just as Daniel had known she
would. He instructed Holroyd to take the ship out beyond the bay and stand by
to pick him up at Harte Point whilst he walked back with her through the woods
to Kestrel Court.
    They walked in silence, though every so often he would hold back
branches from her path, or pull aside brambles, and she would thank him
politely. It was only as they were approaching the edge of the parkland that
she spoke.
    ‘Does it suit you, Daniel, this business of being a pirate?’
    ‘Most of the time,’ Daniel said. He raised his brows. ‘Does it suit
you to be a governess?’
    She shot him a look from beneath the battered edge of her bonnet.
‘Most of the time,’ she said. There was an undertone of humour in her voice.
‘It is better than marriage, at any rate.’
    ‘That would surely depend on who you were married to?’
    There was a pause. The wind sighed through the pines. ‘I suppose
so,’ Lucinda said. ‘I made a bad mistake with Leopold. I was running away from
my feelings for you, I suppose. And I was angry, so I took the first offer I
received.’
    The pain and guilt in Daniel tightened another notch.
    ‘We all make mistakes,’ he said, ‘and mine have been the
greater.’
    He saw her smile. ‘So what were your mistakes, Daniel?’
    Daniel turned to look at her in the gathering dusk. ‘Leaving
you,’ he said. ‘Arrogance, complacency, thoughtlessness…Oh, and cheating a
Portuguese pirate at cards and almost paying for it with my life.’
    Lucinda gave a peal of laughter.
    ‘And wishing,’ Daniel said softly, watching her face, ‘that I
could change the past.’
    The laughter died from her eyes. ‘That is a mistake,
Daniel.’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘We are almost at the park wall. You may
leave me here. I shall be quite safe.’
    She put a hand against his chest and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
Her lips were cool and they clung to his, and he wanted to pick her up and
carry her off to make love to her under the trees of the pine forest. But he
knew that some things could never be, and already he had let matters go far too
far.
    ‘Goodnight,’ she whispered, and he knew that she meant goodbye.
    ‘Tell them to lock the doors fast tonight,’ Daniel said.
    She raised her chin. ‘Because you and your scoundrel crew will be
out smuggling?’
    The frustration, the wanting, poured through him and almost swept
everything else aside. He caught her shoulders, pressing her back against the
trunk of the nearest tree.
    ‘Ah, Lucy, what a shockingly poor opinion you have of me,’ he
muttered, his mouth harsh against hers. He wanted to forget her anger and her
scorn and find the sweetness beneath—the sweetness he was sure was still there
for him. He plundered her mouth like the pirate he was—taking, demanding,
asking no permission. He held her hard against the unyielding wood as he stole
the response he wanted from her, his kiss fierce and insistent, until he was
panting for breath and she was too, and he knew from the touch and the feel of
her that she was his for the taking.
    Her eyes were a hazy blue in the moonlight, dazed with sensual
desire, and her mouth was soft and ripe and he ached for her. But he knew that
if he made love to her now she would hate him in the morning. Because although
he could wrench this response from her body she mistrusted him, and detested
what he had become, and once she thought about what had happened she would
despise herself and him too.
    With an oath he set her away from him.
    ‘You had better go, Lucinda,’ he said, deliberately cruel. ‘Go
before I forget what little honour I have left and treat you like the pirate I
am.’
    He saw her flinch at his harshness, and then she gathered her
cloak to her and hurried away.