The Earl in My Bed: A Forgotten Princesses Valentine Novella by Sophie Jordan Read Free Book Online

female men lived and died for. His body still hummed, aching for her—her lips, her skin, her breasts . . .
    Owen —he quickly supplanted. She was the type of woman Owen lived and died for. Not him.
    He imagined Owen somewhere in barren terrain. He well remembered the heat, the bugs that gnawed on flesh. The death. The blood. He winced to think of how he had just very nearly ravished Paget. The only thing Owen had was the lure of home. Memories of this place and Paget. He’d not steal that from him. She would be waiting for him when he returned.
    He watched as her cloaked figure grew smaller and smaller.
    He would do the right thing. Perhaps for the first time in his life. He would be a good brother and not think about the loneliness of his own life and all that he didn’t have. It was not Owen’s fault that their father had favored him . . . that Brand had favored him . . . that Paget belonged to him.
    He would cease begrudging his brother, cease coveting what was his. Jamie would resist Paget. He would do the right thing. No matter what Paget awoke inside him. No matter that he wanted her.

 
    C HAPTER F IVE
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    “P aget, are you paying attention? Honestly, you’ve been woolgathering all morning. How am I ever to finish these love knots in time?” Alice Mary stared at her expectantly. Accusingly .
    Paget snapped her attention to the mounds of pink and yellow ribbon spread out in front of her. Her fingers feverishly resumed working.
    “I’m sorry, Alice Mary.” Her cheeks burned at the direction of her wayward thoughts. She had been reliving yesterday. Again . It was bad enough she had stayed awake all night thinking of Jamie. His mouth on her. His hands. His mouth . She couldn’t shake the memories. Not even after the callous way he had treated her. It was as though the way he made her feel superseded anything he said.
    She threaded the pink and yellow ribbons through her fingers into loops. Alice Mary wanted the love knots to hang suspended from the ceiling. An ambitious plan with the ball only four days away. “How many more do we need?” At least fifty sat piled high on a nearby table, the work of Paget and Alice Mary.
    Alice Mary tsked her tongue and went back to counting. “We need at least a hundred more. Don’t you remember me telling you? Really, Paget, you’re about as distracted as I was when I first met my John.” Her hands froze. She dropped a half-formed love knot into her lap, heedless that she hadn’t even tied it off yet. “Paget Ellsworth, are you besotted?”
    “Don’t be silly!” Even as she protested, heat crept over her face and she stared with renewed fascination at the ribbon in her hands.
    “You’re blushing. It’s true,” Alice Mary declared with relish. “There is someone.” She moved to drop down beside Paget on the settee she occupied, heedless that she sat upon several yards of ribbons and Paget’s skirts.
    Paget gave her skirts a helpless tug. She was well and truly trapped.
    “There’s no one,” she insisted.
    Alice Mary watched her with narrow eyes, contemplating. “Indeed,” she mused. “Everyone always assumed that you and Owen would marry. But he has been gone so dreadfully long, has he not?” A long pause followed this.
    Paget slid her a wary glance. “Er, yes. He has.”
    “You know what they say?” Alice Mary added.
    Paget rose to the bait. She could not help herself. “What do they say?”
    She waved a hand airily. “Oh, about absence making the heart forgetful.”
    Paget frowned. “I think you have that in the reverse.”
    “Do I?” Alice Mary angled her head. “Well, no mind. My point is this—” She leveled a serious look at Paget. “I for one never thought you and Owen were fated. Not as everyone else.”
    Paget blinked and sat up straighter. “No? That certainly puts you in the minority. Why did you never tell me before?”
    Alice Mary shrugged one shoulder. “I figured you would realize it for yourself, but then he went