The Romantic by Madeline Hunter Read Free Book Online Page B

reach for her, or did she move to him? Suddenly she was in his comforting embrace. She welcomed the intimacy. They were old friends, after all.
    It felt wonderful to be held. His arms reassured her as much as his words had.
    “The earl has now warned off your family. I expect him to soon turn his attention to me. You may not be safe here. I think that it would be best if you left London,” he said, as she nestled against him and drank in his support and warmth. “I have a property on the Essex coast and want to take you there early tomorrow. It is isolated, and I have to warn you that it is also fairly rustic. For a day ortwo you will have to be alone there, until I can make other arrangements. Do you think that you can bear that, and the lack of servants or comforts?”
    She nodded. She could bear anything if it meant not living as though she sensed the earl behind her every moment.
    She found her senses, and grew starkly conscious of their touching bodies. Feeling herself flush, she stepped back and out of his arms.
    He did not look discomfitted at all, but then Mr. Hampton never did. “I must go to my chambers for a few hours now. I will wake you before dawn so that we can be off. Is that agreeable to you, madame?”
    “Yes, Mr. Hampton. That is agreeable.”

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described the cottage very well. Heading up a low rise in the land, Julian aimed the curricle for a small, isolated stone house. Nothing but the sky hung behind it, and only some outbuildings and the sound of the surf surrounded it.
    They had left Russell Square silently in the dark hours of morning, long before Julian’s household had risen. Even Batkin and Mrs. Tuttle were not told she was leaving.
    “Do you own this house?” she asked, as he handed her down from the curricle.
    “I bought it some years ago when I first established myself.”
    “Did you seek a retreat from your life in the city and the social obligations forced on you?”
    “I only thought of it as having a home on the coast. I have always enjoyed the sea.”
    “Maybe that is in your blood. After all, one of your uncles was an officer in the navy, and you even thought of a career in it yourself. Do you ever regret not doing that?”
    “I do not believe in regrets over the past. They are very pointless. The few that I do harbor have nothing to do with how I employ myself.”
    The house was simple but appealing. A sitting room and a small, densely stocked library faced the sea, and they entered through a kitchen garden and door. A small dining room and one bedchamber made up the rest of the ground floor.
    While Julian went back out to carry in some provisions he had brought, she strolled through rooms with exposed beamed ceilings and whitewashed plastered walls. The furnishings were simple and spare, but not crude.
    “It is very charming,” she called to him when she heard his step in the kitchen. “Do you never have servants here?”
    “No.”
    “Not even Batkin?”
    “Not even Batkin.”
    He would have silence then. Only the sounds of the sea and the winds would be his company. The house had not been closed, so he did not come here only in the summer. It would not surprise her to learn that he deliberately traveled here when a storm was brewing so he could experience nature at its most primitive.
    She retraced her steps to the sitting room where Mr. Hampton was building a fire. As she watched him, she considered why she felt she knew the attraction of this house to him.
    It came from the past. She remembered one summer when he was visiting Laclere Park and a terrific storm blew in. She had found him in the library right at the window, watching it, almost entranced. He had abruptlyleft her there; then, she had seen him walking outside, right into the turbulence as if the excitement of the fury had drawn him into itself.
    “That should spare you from the worst of the damp,” he said, dusting off his hands as he rose beside the fireplace. “I will make one in