Romancing a Stranger by Shady Grace Read Free Book Online Page A

were bursting before his eyes. Perhaps he was the one losing his mind.
    A man stepped out of the darkness ahead of him.
    Warden’s eyes widened as the familiar, long white hair of the Finnish Roma, Saska, came into focus.
    “Blackwood,” Saska said, in his cultured accent and raspy tone. “You look troubled. Is your new wife not of your liking?”
    His heartbeat quickened, and he drew in a sharp breath. “My new wife? What do you mean?”
    Saska smiled, making the wrinkles all over his leathery face more prominent. His ice blue eyes twinkled like a sorcerer’s. “When you came to me many weeks ago, you wanted true love, yes? I read it in your eyes…your heart. Has she not given hers in return?”
    The old man must have lost his marbles. “How…what…?” Yes, he had wanted Millicent to love him, but how could the old gypsy know that? As far as he was concerned, he bought an amethyst globe as a birthday gift, but did not really believe in the powers it supposedly held. “I do not understand.”
    “You are not meant to. Men are not meant to understand a woman, just as a woman is not meant to understand us. But she is pure in heart and soul. She comes from a place where good men are few and far between. She comes from a place where people fly!” He raised his hands in the air, dazzled by his own words. “I’ve seen her. The change has already begun.”
    “What change? Do you mean the way my wife has been acting?” Warden grabbed the lapels of Saska’s bright plaid coat and yanked him close. “What did you do to my wife?”
    Saska didn’t seem at all threatened by Warden’s roughhousing. In fact, he smiled, displaying a shiny gold tooth that sparkled under the harbor lights. “Which one? The woman who could not love you or the one who took her place?”
    Warden’s eyes bulged, and he stepped back, releasing his grip on Saska’s coat. “Impossible. She appears as she always had…” But she did not recognize me or Josephine, the house, the servants. And she knew things she had no right knowing . My god! The woman in my home is a stranger.
    But she was a stranger he loved. No matter where she came from, or how she got here, he still loved her with every fiber of his being.
    “How did you know this would work?”
    Saska grinned, clearly pleased with himself. “The amethyst ball is blessed and given to the bearer to give to his love. If that love is returned by dawn on the fourteenth day, their love will stay true forever. If it is not, all will be as it was.”
    As it was. Lonely nights. Separate lives. Bitter silence.
    He calculated how many days had passed since he handed Millicent the globe and cursed. “That’s less than two days away.”
    “Then you better hope you have not given her reason to turn away from you.”
    Warden balled his fists and nearly pummeled Saska to the ground. “You could have mentioned the time frame to me in the beginning,” he growled.
    “And I did not have to come to you now,” Saska replied. “Go home and give her a reason to stay, for this girl is your fortune.”
    Warden pushed past the old man and ran for his carriage. He shouted instructions for John to drive home as quickly as the horses would take them. As the carriage lurched forward, he glanced back to where Saska stood.
    The old gypsy was gone.
    * * * *
    Milli rolled onto her side. “Mmm…” The pillow felt so soft, and the mattress cushioned her body like a warm cloud. Delicious heat pressed against her back. She shifted and wiggled her butt against the comforting warmth. The distinct shape of a hard cock nudged her ass.
    Her eyes whipped open.
    A manly groan stilted the silence and the erection against her ass shifted. Instant pleasure singed a path between her legs. She sighed, happy that he had come to her. Maybe he’d had a change of heart.
    Her immediate surprise shifted to something else, something sexual. A big hand skimmed up the curve of her hip, around her rib cage, until it palmed her breast