The Fighter and the Fallen Woman by Pamela Cayne Read Free Book Online Page B

again.
    “Lady,” King said in a slow drawl. “To what do I owe this pleasure? Or should I say, to whom?”
    Lady pressed her lips together. “Mr. Adams asked that I come by to minister to your wounds. He wants his man to be in top fighting form.” The last three words were delivered with a sharp edge and she waved her hand in the air to emphasize her point, hoping that would cover for her tender impulse of earlier. It was easier to be angry with King than to treat him like something happened between them last night. Repair the crack, smooth it over.
    King appeared to weigh her words for several long seconds, and Lady waited. When she felt like he had pushed her enough, she turned to Nessie and said, “Let’s go, Mrs. Nesbitt. King is a big, strong man and obviously doesn’t need my care. It simply means I get an afternoon to go shopping.” She had taken two steps when King stopped her.
    “Wait,” he said, and Lady stopped but didn’t turn to face him. This was his dance to call, but she didn’t have to make it easy. “Won’t you please come in?”
    Lady turned, the short train of her dress sweeping the floor in a graceful arc of cabbage roses. King was standing to the side of his door, indicating with his outstretched arm that she should enter. He was looking somewhere past her right hip, but Lady didn’t step forward until he raised his eyes and looked at her.
    “Please,” he said. The irritation was gone, banished or hidden. She wanted to tell him she understood what he was going through, torn between the pain of daily life and the secret dreams of somebody so near yet so far, but she could no more do that than kiss him again. She wanted to tell him how much he’d helped that one night Mr. Adams had passed out, earning Lady a few nights’ rest at the risk of their deception being discovered. She wanted to tell him she would die if he didn’t hold her, let her bury her face against his neck and feel safe, but that was the opposite of rebuilding her armor and smoothing it over. No matter how much she wanted it.
    “Thank you, King.” Lady adjusted the lace at the neck of her dress. “I’d be delighted. Nessie, why don’t you wait here?” Lady indicated a bench set into an alcove near King’s door. Being alone with King could be bad, but having Nessie possibly see King’s true effect on her would be worse.
    Lady entered King’s rooms and as she stopped in front of the fireplace to look around the gray and colorless room, she could see him putting on a shirt from the corner of her eye.
    Somehow that flustered her worse than seeing his bare torso. His bed three feet away, that slight spice scent she associated with him, even his bare feet, they all caused something to flutter in her belly and the demand that he hold her grew stronger. Doing the only thing she could think of to save them both, Lady drew on the person she’d been last night, haughty and bold. She faced him as he finished buttoning it up, stopping three buttons short of his neck. She raised her eyebrow at him, challenging him to fasten a few more for propriety’s sake, but King didn’t make a move to alter his dress in any way. Fine. If he wanted to play the tough man, she could play the whore. In slow, exaggerated movements, she looked away from him and sat on his bed, deliberately ignoring the proper chair in the middle of the room. She crossed her legs and turned her upper body toward him, the motion causing her to brace her weight on her right arm held behind her. She started to drape her left wrist over her knee, but something caught her eye. She reached over and plucked a long, blond hair off his pillow and held it to the side. “Well, well, well,” she said with a coy smile. “It looks like I’m not the only visitor you’ve been entertaining.”
    “Lady, what do you want?” He crossed his arms.
    She let the strand of hair go and watched its descent before rubbing her fingers together like she was rubbing dirt off them.