No Choice but Seduction by Johanna Lindsey Read Free Book Online Page B

next communication from the abductors to arrive, and Boyd elected to wait it out at Anthony’s house.
    Boyd had explained, “I’d just as soon my niece, Jacqueline, not know about this until your daughter is safely back at home, and rather than lie to her, I’d prefer to avoid her. So if you wouldn’t mind putting me up for the night?”
    Anthony was on his way to being quite foxed by then, which was his way of dealing with waiting. He’d skipped dinner as he didn’t have food on his mind. Neither did Boyd for that matter, and when several more bottles were delivered to the parlor, he’d grabbed one for himself.
    He never did find his way upstairs to a bed. He passed out on one of several sofas in Sir Anthony’s parlor. Voices woke him the next morning from a pleasant dream—about her.
    Dreaming was the only time his thoughts about Katey Tyler were pleasant, and this dream was soothing rather than passionate. He was in a field of daisies near his home in Connecticut. He’d found a wounded deer there once. It was a seagull he found in his dream, a bird he would always associate with Katey now. And he was bending to examine it when he saw her slowly approaching him, dressed in pink and lavender, the sun sparkling all around her.
    She had a small bunny in the crook of one arm and a squirrel perched on her shoulder. Squirrels could be vicious, but he knew this one wouldn’t hurt her. Her compassion for animals was the first thing about her that had touched his heart.
    His dreams flitted from one scene to another without rhyme or reason, and now they were lying in that field side by side, holding hands. A profound peace filled him because she was his, no matter how briefly. She leaned up. With the sun behind her, he could barely see her face, but he felt her lips soft on his cheek.
    The dream might have turned sensual if it had continued. His dreams usually were hot and passionate when she was in them, and she was in them too often. When he was awake, his thoughts about her frustrated him because she was off-limits—a married woman. And he wished to hell she would stay out of his mind and his dreams.
    She’d put him through two lusting weeks of hell on that voyage a month and a half ago. She had no idea how much he’d wanted her. But because she was already married and happily on her way to meet her husband, he’d backed off. That had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done, and he’d done his best to avoid her. No easy feat aboard a ship. But while he didn’t expect to see her again, he simply couldn’t forget about her. He’d been that strongly attracted to her—her personality, her beautiful face, her smile, her luscious body…
    It was Jeremy Malory’s voice that dispelled the dream and woke him. James’s oldest son, Jeremy had the black hair and cobalt blue eyes that only a few Malorys possessed. He looked nothing like his father, who was blond and green-eyed, and everything like his uncle Anthony—which was a source of amusement to most of the family.
    The lad was explaining, “Danny and I arrived home from our wedding trip this morning. You can imagine my surprise when my butler immediately pulled me aside—he didn’t want to fret m’wife—and told me that you commandeered my entire household last night. Then he handed me this. It had been anchored down with a large rock on our front steps.”
    “This” was a note that Jeremy handed to Anthony. Apparently, the wait was over.
    “Delivered to another wrong house?” Boyd guessed as he sat up and stretched the sleep from his limbs. “These people obviously don’t know your family very well.”
    “Morning, Yank,” Jeremy greeted him, adding, “If they knew our family well, they never would have done this.”
    “Good point,” Boyd agreed.
    The Malory family wasn’t just very large, very rich, and very titled. The two younger brothers, James and Anthony, had been such rakehells in their day, never losing a duel whether with fists or