Elusive Flame by Woodiwiss Kathleen E

Author:Woodiwiss, Kathleen E. [Woodiwiss, Kathleen E.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance, General, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780061741548
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-13T07:00:00+00:00

His words stung far more harshly than the steely grip he had fastened on her arm. Abruptly he released her and pivoted about, giving her no further notice as he returned to his conversation with the bosun, who seemed to blush in embarrassment as he flicked a worried glance toward her.

Cerynise backed away hastily, averting her eyes to hide her swimming tears. Somehow she managed to descend the steps to the main deck without stumbling and quietly, gracefully made her way to the companionway with all the dignity she could summon. She moved past men who kept their gazes focused diligently on anything or anyone but her. The knowledge of her public rejection only intensified her distress. Indeed, her chest ached as if her heart had been ripped free.

In her unhappiness and haste, Cerynise was unaware of the man who watched her with carefully hooded eyes from the quarterdeck. Beau had dropped any pretense of ignoring his wife, yet only the jagged pulse that had leapt to life in his throat attested to his own disquiet as he stared after her with mingled feelings of regret and concern. If not for his damnable pride, he might have broken his guise of stoic reticence and gone after her, letting the crew think what they would. His annoyance with himself was paramount, and try as he might, he could not stop those strange, tantalizing dreams from flaring through his mind where, with heightening recurrences, they conspired to form a memory.

With a broken sob Cerynise swung the door of her cabin closed behind her and threw herself onto the bunk, where she poured out her anguish in the muffling softness of the pillow. It seemed suddenly too much for her to bear, all of her fear and her love for Beau culminating in that brief interlude of passion that was her secret and her torment. But now, his manner was as cold as the sea they were sailing, as if her efforts to withhold herself had wrecked every chance she had ever had of staying married to him.

Cerynise’s tears ebbed only with the onslaught of a traumatized sleep, but it was a nightmarish elapse of time, a horrible illusion in which she became desperately afraid for her life. She was running through a dark house with Alistair Winthrop and Howard Rudd following hard upon her heels while flashes of light burst all around her, startling her and sending her reeling away in fright and trepidation. In spite of her frantic attempts to flee, the two men came ever closer and, with each new discovery of her hiding places, set her to flight again and again until there was no place left where she could seek shelter. They seemed to swoop down upon her like banshees from hell, and in their hands they carried large black sheets in which to bind her for her burial. Her back was to the wall as they pulled them across her face, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.…

With a

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