The Haunting of Grey Cliffs by Nina Coombs Pykare Read Free Book Online Page B

disclosure about the previous earl's death. But she must be mistaken about that. My husband would tell me she was mistaken and then I could forget the whole thing.
    Edward mistook my thinking silence for a negative response and turned toward the door, presenting me with his broad back.
    "Wait!" I cried. "I—I'll just get my cloak."
    He turned back to me and I imagined I saw a hint of pleasure in his brooding features. "Good," he said, and I heard the satisfaction in his voice. "I think you'll like the moor. It has its own wild beauty."
    * * * *
    Some time later, I conceded that my husband was right. We had walked in silence for some minutes, through the twisted trees. Even though I knew the cause of their tortured look they still made me feel they were in agony. And finally we came out onto the rolling moor. The breeze was chill, but not extremely uncomfortable. I sniffed, noting it carried the smell of the sea.
    The moor stretched out around us. Barren except for the wildness of sedge and gorse, there was still something exceptional about it. There was desolation of a sort, and yet the promise of a wild, savage beauty.
    The earl moved closer to my side. "You should see it in the spring when the wildflowers bloom," he said. And then he chuckled. "You will see it in the spring when the wildflowers bloom."
    I turned to look up into his face. His features had softened with his pleasure at this place. He looked younger, happier, and even more handsome.
    He took another step toward me, his gaze traveling over my face. And then, quite suddenly, without a word of warning, he swept me into his arms.
    They were strong arms, muscular, and they held me so close I smelled a hint of leather, a touch of spice. It was warm there, against his hard male body. I did not try to escape his grasp. My cloak had wrapped around me, making it difficult to move. And I felt a strangeness, held so close to this man I didn't know. But I did not really wish to move, because I felt something else, a ripple of what seemed like pleasure.
    How could I take pleasure in being— I raised my head to look into his eyes, perhaps to—and knew I had made a mistake.
    His eyes were dark—black as the rocks below my chamber window and just as hard. Yet they gleamed with something warm, something burning.
    Then he bent his head and his lips covered mine. I shivered, but I was not cold. Indeed, a raging heat swept through my limbs, leaving me as weak and helpless as a child after a fever. But no child ever experienced the shocking emotions that invaded my body at the moment his tongue encountered mine.
    I could not help myself, I cried out against his lips.
    My husband raised his head, his eyes gone even harder and now stone cold. His lips curled in what approached a sneer. "Beware, Hester, you will get no child if you refuse me."
    I had been about to apologize, to explain—though not the precise nature of the feelings that even then made me blush—but his gruff tone and annoyed expression pinched my pride. So instead I simply replied, "I know, milord. I shall endeavor to do better."
    Such a soft answer seemed to take him by surprise and for a moment his features warmed again. He reached out, pulling up my hood, which had fallen back during our embrace. "I'm sure you will," he said, touching my cheek with a warm finger. "I'll see to it."
    The words were a threat, that much seemed plain. Yet they were spoken with so much tenderness, so much warmth, that I felt that awful heat rising in me again and could not reply.
    He didn't seem to take this amiss, but removed his arm from around me, and twining the fingers of one hand through mine, turned back toward the moor. "Shall we walk a little farther? Tell me, now that you've met him, what do you think of Ned?"
    That was the opening I sought and immediately I launched into a recital of our tour of the castle and his topics of discussion.
    My husband laughed outright when he heard about the snake in the schoolroom desk.