When We Touch by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online

allow it to happen, Jamie,” she warned him.
    â€œWhat? The wedding? I can scarcely stop your father.”
    â€œAh . . . his bride is what? Twenty-two, twenty-three? She must have fallen madly in love with father. What a . . . a slut!”
    To his amazement, he found himself defending the woman. Only before Arianna, because this must hurt her badly. “She is Lady Maggie, daughter of a baron, hardly a streetwalker. And where did you learn such language? Surely not from the nuns.”
    â€œProbably from you,” she informed him dryly.
    He groaned. “Your father would have my throat.”
    â€œOh, Jamie! I am not so young and totally naive as you may believe. Yes, this is a convent school. And the nuns are certainly all chastity and propriety!” She giggled. “But we do slip out now and then.”
    â€œSlip out where?” he demanded, frowning.
    â€œDon’t look so fierce. We go shopping. We see the works of the new, upcoming artists. We sit in cafés and listen to the speeches of young, rebellious, handsome boys. Oh, don’t worry, and don’t look at me so! We go no further than that, I swear, Jamie.”
    â€œThank God. If something were ever to happen to you . . .”
    â€œMy father will now have a witch of a wife!”
    â€œArianna, you haven’t even met her.”
    â€œI don’t need to meet her. I’ve heard all about her. She married a bobby, and began to spend her days in the East End. Then she thought that she was something of a detective herself, and determined to rid the world of mesmerists. Hardly an open mind there! I’ve seen some of these people at work. Some are quite amazing. I believe that they do have special powers to speak with the dead, to see the future, and touch the world.”
    â€œAnd some of them are out to fleece the rich,” Jamie said. It didn’t please him that he found himself defending his uncle’s intended bride. “Don’t judge the woman until you’ve met her.”
    Arianna shook her head. “Jamie, what is to judge? She is a very young woman, about to marry a very old man. Desperate love? I doubt it. It’s prostitution, nothing less.”
    â€œArianna, for years, such marriages have been arranged. This is not really new, or even shocking in the least. She could not marry without her brother’s permission.”
    â€œHe allowed her to marry the policeman as well?”
    â€œApparently.”
    â€œWell, then, her brother is as low a creature as she! Oh, Jamie, this is horrible. Truly horrible. At his doddering old age, my father has become infatuated with a tart! Is there nothing at all that you can do?”
    â€œArianna, I tell you this—I have never seen him so set on any course of action before. He is absolutely determined. Therefore, we must both accept it.”
    â€œAha! You disapprove as well.”
    â€œMy opinion on the matter is unimportant.”
    â€œIt’s not. Father listens to you. You’re the son he never had.”
    â€œArianna, he wants to marry this woman, and he will. I assure you.”
    â€œMen, you know,” Arianna told him. “They can behave quite disgustingly.”
    Jamie refrained from agreeing with her. But yes, he found it all rather disgusting himself. He couldn’t forget the moment when his eyes had first locked with Maggie’s, when their hands had first touched. She was electric.
    A witch, indeed. Tainted, society might say. Yet . . . electric. Sensual in her every movement, no matter how proper her words, dress, or manner. He thought of the feel of her flesh, and despite his devotion to his uncle, his thoughts were crass and carnal. Such a woman needed a far younger man. Vigorous, passionate, hungry . . .
    As he was himself.
    God help him! Whatever it took, he would bury such thoughts.
    Yet, how to bury what burned through him at the sight of her, when he touched her?
    Easy. Don’t look at her,