Lady Sarah's Redemption by Beverley Eikli

Author:Beverley Eikli [Eikli, Beverley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Regency
ISBN: 9781478289081
Google: fk1XPgAACAAJ
Amazon: 1478289082
Publisher: Robert Hale
Published: 2009-05-28T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

ROLAND WOKE WITH a raging thirst.

He needed water, or he would die. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed he attempted to rise. But his legs buckled and he landed on his face upon the floor.

It took him all his energy to struggle back onto the mattress where he sat a few minutes, his head reeling, as he tried to recollect what had brought him to this indifferent London posting inn. If he was in London, as he believed he was, he ought to be enjoying the rarefied atmosphere of his club. This place smelled of musty linen and cheap candles.

He noticed his boots were off and he was shirtless. But there was a basin of water and a sponge still damp on the washstand. His valet had not accompanied him on this apparently hasty, clandestine trip and yet he had been attended to.

A vision of Lady Sarah swam before him, though he couldn’t imagine why. While he searched in the gloom for the water jug, wisps of memory drifted through his muddled brain. The image of her was so very strong.

When he lit a candle and saw her veil upon the bed, he put his hands to his head and groaned.

Dear Lord, if she’d been with him last night what atrocities might he have committed? If – as clearly had been the case – he was not in full charge of his mental faculties, the beast within would have taken over. He’d have given free reign to the lustful desires she inspired and which had consumed him during the past six weeks.

He groaned again. If she had been here last night, where was she, now?

Caro!

Guilty fear galvanised him into action, but as he reached for his shirt, nausea gripped him and he fell to his knees on the wooden boards.

First Caro had disappeared. Now Sarah was gone. It was starting to come back to him. Sarah’s tender ministrations, but there had been an urgency about her, too. Yes, something about Caro. What was it she had said? Something about knowing Caro’s whereabouts? Surely he hadn’t dreamed that?

If she really had been here at all? Surely Lord Miles would never have released her to travel, unescorted, to London? Surely Sarah would never have been so reckless as to have come, alone and unchaperoned, to his bed chamber?

Never! he reaffirmed, nodding decisively in part to shake his disappointment. The veil belonged to someone else and had inadvertently appeared on his bed. It was as simple as that.

He pulled his shirt over his head. He was feeling a little better, though he had no idea where he’d start his search. It was all so hopeless.

Then he saw the note pushed under the door with his name written clearly on the outside. Thank the Lord, he thought as he struggled to cross the room and pick it up. It must contain news regarding Caro’s whereabouts. Perhaps, even, that she’d been found safe.

But all it contained was a single address.

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