The Tempting of Thomas Carrick by Stephanie Laurens Read Free Book Online Page B

Hunt Ball two years ago. They had chatted and shared a waltz—and her heart had soared. That waltz. Those ineluctable moments and their implication had been impossible to mistake, to misconstrue. To ignore.
    After that night, she’d expected him to call any day. For the next month, she’d lived in a state of giddy anticipation.
    But he hadn’t come.
    More, he hadn’t set foot on the Lady’s lands since.
    A sound reached her—the shifting of a stone on the path leading into the grove.
    Her senses immediately focused. Even while her mind was telling her it was doubtless some animal or bird, her senses reached, found—and knew.
    Slowly, she turned.
    As if her thoughts had finally conjured him, he was standing ten feet away, where the crooked path leading to the grove opened into the clearing. Tradition held that only the Lady’s representatives and their consorts could enter Her grove—yet, as he was to be her consort…
    He looked…even more elementally hers than she recalled. An even more perfect construct of her desire. Dark hair, a brown so dark it appeared black in most lights, fell in fashionably cut waves about his well-shaped head. Arched dark brows framed eyes of a curious and compelling shade of golden amber, a complex, mesmerizing blend of pale hazel and gold. Sharp cheekbones rode above aesthetically austere cheeks, complementing a squared chin and finely drawn, mobile lips.
    She hadn’t forgotten his height—significantly greater than her own—or his physique, a riveting combination of muscles stretched over long, heavy bones; she had no difficulty imagining that his physical form had been created by the hand of some god in that god’s own image.
    He was a strikingly handsome man, but what most commanded the attention of any female was the ineffable aura of power that clung to him. That pervaded the very atmosphere around him.
    She was no less susceptible than any other woman—but she had power of her own.
    Noting that he was, somewhat curiously, dressed in clothes more appropriate for town, with a greatcoat thrown over all, she clasped her hands, drew in a breath, raised her chin high, and looked him in the eye. “Thomas Carrick.”
    She said nothing more. What more was there to say? She wasn’t about to fall into the same trap she had two years ago and assume his presence meant anything at all.
    Thomas held Lucilla’s emerald gaze. This was why he’d been avoiding her—that look, that unvoiced challenge.
    It was as if she, the female she was, had some direct link to all that was male in him—she only had to meet his eyes, and he felt as if she’d sunk talons into his psyche and tugged.
    She possessed—no, she embodied—a certain haughtiness, a highhandedness, an imperious feminine confidence that fascinated and drew him.
    It wasn’t anything so mundane as attraction. This struck much deeper, more forcefully, more enthrallingly.
    And that was on top of all the rest—all that made up her undeniable allure.
    Her head didn’t even reach his shoulder; she was petite, delicate, yet well rounded and womanly. Richly red, her fabulous hair was today caught in a knot at the back of her head, leaving soft, puffed waves framing her heart-shaped face. A redhead’s alabaster complexion was the perfect canvas for her startling eyes—brighter, more intense, than the green of the forests—and her lush rose-tinted lips, crafted by some angel’s hand.
    For a long moment, he simply looked at her—met that green gaze, felt the connection, visceral and so real—then he forced air into his lungs and tipped his head. “Miss Cynster.”
    At the formality, one of her brown brows arched.
    He seized the moment. “I arrived at Carrick Manor in response to a summons, and subsequently rode out to the Bradshaws’ farm—it’s on the northern edge of the estate.”
    Faint puzzlement blooming in her eyes, she nodded. “I know it, but not well. I’ve met the Bradshaws.”
    That made things easier. “They’re