Lord Ruin by Carolyn Jewel

Author:Carolyn Jewel [Jewel, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Fiction, Historical, Romance, England, London (England), Love Stories, Regency Fiction, Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780843951356
Google: 4tMCAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 1937823008
Publisher: Leisure Books
Published: 2002-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

Ruan came awake with a start. He sat, taking in deep breaths of air against the pounding of his heart, disoriented because he had no idea where he was. His skin felt slick and fever hot.

A woman’s hand touched his bare shoulder, cool and comforting. But this was not Katie’s familiar room. Her room he knew like his own. Nor was it Katie next to him in the bed, and that panicked him. She said something, but he heard only the sound. A foreign language perhaps. If not Katie, then who? If not Herriot Street, then where? The woman’s hand left his shoulder.

Eyes squeezed tight shut, he heard linens rustling, felt the mattress shift and guessed she’d wrapped the duvet around her then slipped off the bed. With her leaving, a sense of loss smothered him, a haunting, drowning bleakness that shook him worse even than not knowing where he was. A moment later, she was at his side of the bed, holding a cup.

“Here. Cold tea, but it’s something.”

His bearings returned. He was in his wife’s room. She was naked under that duvet because he’d all ready made love to her once. As he had every night since she’d come to London. Not so long ago that was, yet the time when she hadn’t been with him seemed ages ago, another, bleaker lifetime. “Thank you.” He took the cup and tossed back the contents in one swallow. A chill shook him.

“You’ll catch your death.” Anne leaned in to straighten what remained of the bed covers, pulling them up and over his waist, then padded to the fireplace. “You were shouting in French,” she said as she stirred the embers. “Too fast for me to understand much. You’re more than fluent.”

“I’ve a facility for language.” If he’d shouted in French, then he’d dreamed of Quatre Bras.

She poured half a bucket of fresh coal on the fire. The duvet draped down in the back, exposing a length of delicate shoulder and mid-back. Her independence captivated him. No helpless female she. Katie would have lain shivering more and more dramatically until he rolled out of a warm bed himself. Or called a servant and been cold the meanwhile. “No doubt you speak Spanish and Portuguese as well.”

“Enough to get by.” His heartbeat was calmer now, the dream further from memory. “A smattering of Flemish, too.”

“I have only a little French. Well, you know that.” Still clutching the duvet around her, she came back to the bed. Instead of getting in, she stood uncertainly. She bent down, momentarily disappearing from his sight. When she straightened, she had his robe. Carefully, because she insisted on a lamentable modesty, she folded it over a chair. He held out his empty cup. She took it. “More, sir?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? It’s no trouble.”

“Come back to bed, Anne.” He snagged a corner of the duvet and tugged. She resisted his effort to draw her to him, but eventually she had to practically hop forward. “I can’t believe I want you again.

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