Ransom Redeemed by Jayne Fresina Read Free Book Online Page A

frustrated all at once. "If that's the only thing you imagine I'd be good for," he said, "then it would seem as if those ravishable lips are going to waste, madam."
    "And yet, somehow, they endure the neglect."
    His eyes darkened even further. Apparently there was a color beyond black and it was very, very hot. He took another stride toward her and Mary, unaware until then of her own backward motion, suddenly felt the edge of a shelf against her shoulder.
    "May we return to the subject of books, sir?"
    "You're damnably persistent."
    "As you are deliberately evasive, an habitual flirt who uses that skill to get out of anything he doesn't want to do."
    He exploded with hearty laughter that surrounded Mary in a shockingly intimate embrace. It caused a vibration that seemed to shake up all the dust around her. She imagined the many rows of books rustling their pages, as if they were very stiffly starched matrons who, suddenly aware of their dignified presence being invaded by this dangerous rogue, shook out their skirts and petticoats in ladylike anxiety.
    "Make haste then, truculent wench, if you wish for me to purchase these books. I haven't all day to stand about idle." He tugged on the cuffs of his evening jacket. "Like I said, I'm a very busy fellow."
    Rather than continue to appreciate exactly how pleasing he was upon the eye— 'orribly 'andsome , as the French whirlwind had exclaimed— Mary turned sharply and walked toward the back of the shop, stopping only to pluck a few books from the shelf as she went. Without showing him the titles, she took them quickly to the counter and began wrapping them in paper. And while she did all this, the panther prowled along in her wake.
    For every three of her steps he required only one and still seemed to be catching up with her. Mary felt every advance he made as if it was the caress of his fingertip along her spine.
    How did he do it, she wondered darkly— how did he keep touching her without using his hands?
    "To whom should I make out the bill?" she asked, her gaze fixed upon the parcel as she wrapped it.
    "Deverell. Ransom Deverell. You can send it to Deverell's Club, St. James Street."
    Ah.
    So that was why his features seemed familiar. She took a deep breath of relief. It was not some mystical sense of having met him before then, but a reasonable recognition, plain and simple. Because she knew his sister.
    Mary had become acquainted with Raven Deverell— the only girl in the notorious Deverell litter— more than ten years ago, when they shared the same tutor for dancing and piano lessons. They had remained close friends ever since, despite the Ashford's reduced circumstances and a necessary financial retrenchment which had meant no further lessons for Mary. When Raven's marriage took her away into Oxfordshire, Mary had also taken on the duty of visiting the matriarch of the Deverell family, Lady Charlotte, on her absent daughter's behalf.
    But she had never met any of the Deverell males. Raven always took care to keep her friend away from those infamous brothers. Now, having met this one, she understood her friend's concern— not that Raven should have worried on her account. Foolish flirting no more impressed her now than it had when she was sixteen, and a thin, hopeful, but terribly sappy young man named Lionel Winchester tried serenading her one evening with a song outside her bedroom window.
    Poor Lionel. But was it her fault that she mistook the noise for two cats fighting and tipped her washbasin of cold water over the ledge?
    Irritated, she realized that one of her fingers had somehow managed to get caught inside the loop of string. She tugged hard to free herself, but the string only tightened around her finger and threatened the blood supply. The tip began to go numb. Where on earth had she put the scissors? Now she was all at sixes and sevens. Panic mounted.
    Suddenly a flash of silver gleamed in the corner of her eye and in the next instant she was freed. Ransom