One Wicked Sin by Nicola Cornick Read Free Book Online Page A

schoolroom.”
    Le Prevost choked. “Madame!” He recovered himself and his hazel eyes lit with appreciative laughter. “All that, a sense of humor and perfect French, too? You are a fortunate man, St. Severin.” His gaze narrowed speculatively on Lottie. “Perhaps Wantage will not prove so tedious a posting after all.”
    “You will have to make your own entertainment,” Ethan said, taking Lottie’s arm. “Jacques was previously on parole in Reading,” he murmured to her. “It is where all the richest and most influential French officers are sent and the society there is good. He is less than impressed to be sent to Wantage’s rural backwater.”
    “I am becoming more resigned to my fate by the moment,” Le Prevost said, slapping Ethan on the back. “You had best take your English rose away, my friend, before her jealous countrymen snatch her back.” He made another elegant bow to Lottie. “Your servant, madame. I shall look forward to knowing you better.”
    “I did not realize that you spoke such good French,” Ethan said, as he and Lottie turned the stair. “Were you a studious child?”
    “That seems unlikely, doesn’t it,” Lottie said. “No, I was no bluestocking. In fact my governess, Miss Snook, despaired of me. But my grandmother was French and my mother spoke to us a great deal in that language so I learned almost despite myself.”
    “Us?”
    “My brother, Theo, and I.” Lottie hesitated and Ethan saw a shadow touch her eyes. “He is…away.”
    Ethan took a guess. “Fighting the French?”
    He saw her mouth turn down at the corners. “Yes. I have not heard from him in months. I am not sure…” Her voice trailed away and he knew what she meant.
    I am not sure if he is even still alive….
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    She shrugged. Her expression was bright and hard and she looked uncaring, but Ethan was starting to know her a little now. He knew this was one of the things that hurt her. Matters might have been very different had her brother been present to help her when she needed him.
    “It is of no consequence,” she said lightly. They walked slowly along the upstairs corridor. It was dark and quiet here, but from the floor below wafted the scents of food and the roar of the racing crowd.
    Lottie cast him a sideways glance. “How did you learn your French?” she asked.
    Ethan smiled. “I had to learn quickly when I joined Napoleon’s cavalry otherwise I would have been cantering left when everyone else was galloping right.” He shook his head ruefully. “I did not have your facility with languages, though. I found it ridiculously hard. If I had not had such a talent with horses I think they would have thrown me out on my ear.”
    “How old were you?” Lottie said.
    “Seventeen,” Ethan said. “I was fifteen when I ran away from home, seventeen when I joined the Grande Armée .” He squared his shoulders. He could still see the youth he had been, brash and tough—or so he hadthought—already hardened by experience and yet still a boy underneath, and a scared one at that.
    “Very young,” Lottie said, echoing his thoughts. “I was wed at seventeen,” she added quietly.
    Their eyes met and once again Ethan felt that disturbing tug of affinity between them. There was a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach and behind it an overwhelming urge to take Lottie and hold her tightly and lose himself in her so that the world and its intolerable conflicts might be held at bay a little longer. He hesitated a moment, a part of him rebelling against his need for her, rejecting the intimacy. But his instincts could not be denied. He took a step toward her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
    She made a soft sound as his mouth touched hers, though whether it was from pleasure, surrender or something else he could not be sure. Her lips were as plush and smooth as the richest satin and he wanted to plunder them, but he held back, exerting control, wooing where he wanted