After the Abduction by Jeffries Sabrina

Author:Jeffries, Sabrina [Jeffries, Sabrina]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: Romance, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 0380818043
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-13T07:00:00+00:00

He had a point. “That’s why I was foolish to think courtship would work.” He paced back and forth, wracked by restless energy. “She’ll never trust me, and I can never trust her. Even if she agreed to marry me, it would only be another of her little ploys. My first instinct was right—I should stay the devil away from her until the Knightons leave. Knighton has already said he doesn’t believe her suspicions, so as long as I’m not around for her to trick into admitting I was her kidnapper, there’s nothing she can do.”

His uncle chuckled. “You weren’t terribly successful in staying away from her before. I suspect you won’t manage it any better this time.”

He bristled. “And why not?”

“You want her. That changes everything. Because once a man wants a woman, he will do any number of foolish things to secure her.”

Like risk putting his neck in a noose. He shook off the thought. “I’m not my father. I can control my physical urges.”

Uncle Lew idly stroked the ivy streaming over one end of the bench. “I am by no means certain that is true. But even if it is, the physical urges are not what will trap you. It is the other urges that will prove your downfall.”

“What other urges?”

“The temptation of having a soft woman to confide in. The lure of a companion who understands you. The need for love.”

He shook his head. “Then you have naught to worry about. I outgrew the need for love the day I discovered what havoc it wrought in the life of my mother—your sister. It won’t govern my own actions.”

“One does not outgrow the need for love, my dear nephew. One merely twists it elsewhere, toward secondary passions.” Uncle Lew twined the green ivy around his gloved finger. “But like a vine, it will always creep back around your heart when you least expect it, and if you do not take great care, it will seize such hold of you that only by satisfying the need can you cut yourself free.”

That was precisely the possibility that alarmed him. “You’ve become tediously philosophical in your old age, Uncle Lew. Thank God one of us is immune to such sentimentality, or else we’d all be lost and done for.”

With that, he turned and strode out of the conservatory.

So he didn’t hear his uncle murmur, “Who says you are not lost and done for already, my boy?”

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