Spellbound & Seduced by Marguerite Kaye Read Free Book Online Page A

have a choice. To have none, to have no hope, Jura—that is a bleak future indeed.’
    â€˜Don’t pity me,’ she said, brushing the tears from her eyes and trying to smile, ‘I have much to be happy about. My powers do good, Lawrence, that must be enough.’
    â€˜And you are certain that this spell you have cast upon yourself is effective?’
    â€˜I’m four-and-twenty, and I’ve never yet felt even the slightest inclination towards any man.’
    â€˜That’s hardly a nice thing to say, when I was under the impression last night that you were very much inclined towards me,’ Lawrence pointed out.
    â€˜You, who are no more capable of falling in love than I,’ Jura retorted. ‘You were lost, and I was lonely, that is all.’
    â€˜But I’m not lost now, and I want you more than ever. And you can’t be lonely, because here I am, and I know you want me too. I can tell from the way your eyes darken. The way your breath quickens when I touch you. If you let me see your aura, it would be the colour of sunrise. I know you want me, and you know you do, and unless you say no, then I am afraid I’m going to have to do something about it.’
    He was smiling his wicked smile, and she was tingling all over in response, for his blatant desire made her feel powerful in a quite different way from her magic. Jura shook her head. She leaned towards him, deliberately brushing her breasts against his chest. ‘I don’t want you to,’ she said, sinking down onto the flagstones between his legs, just as he had knelt between hers last night. ‘I don’t want you to do anything at all about it. This time,’ she said, trailing her fingers up the insides of his thighs, delighting in the way it made his muscles ripple, ‘it’s my turn.’

Chapter Five
    â€˜What would you use for a soothing tisane?’
    â€˜Liquorice root. Peppermint leaves. Valerian to aid sleep,’ Lawrence said.
    â€˜Skin rash?’
    â€˜Oatmeal paste for something minor, a poultice of chickweed and comfrey if there is poison to be drawn.’
    â€˜Childbed fever?’
    Jura listened as Lawrence recited the various treatments. His coat lay over the back of the wooden chair. He had his sleeves rolled up. His hair fell over his cheek and tangled with his lashes. A week he had been here at her cottage, seven whole days, the pair of them closeted together seeing not another soul, and yet she still felt she could not get enough of him. It worried her, the strength of the attraction she felt for him. It had worried her enough to make her creep out to her still room in the dark of night and renew the spell. Her magic had never let her down, her powers made her inviolable, yet why then did her heart skip a little beat every time she looked at him? Why did it lurch when she woke beside him? What was this warmth which enveloped her, like a thick velvet blanket, when their gazes locked over some little domestic task? Why was it that he had only to look at her in a certain way for her stomach to clench, her blood to tingle, her pulses flutter? And what was it that made her feel, in the aftermath of their fervent lovemaking, that she was no longer herself, but had become another?
    â€˜Jura?’
    She pushed aside the vellum-bound book of herbs, thrusting aside also her doubts and questions. A thaw was in the air, she could smell it. All too soon he would be gone, and they would both be safe. What she felt, strong as it was, could not possibly be stronger than her magic. ‘Your understanding is impressive,’ she said to Lawrence. ‘You are a very fast learner.’
    â€˜I have a most accomplished teacher.’
    â€˜You flatter me. You don’t need me, just this book.’
    â€˜No. I need you.’
    Something in his tone made her skin prickle. His eyes too, it was not desire which lit them. And his aura—white for significant change and