Mary Balogh - SLIGHTLY SINFUL by Piero Fiaccadori

Author:Piero Fiaccadori
Format: epub

She heard herself laugh, and she turned her head to share her exuberance with the man beside her. He gazed back at her with very dark, unsmiling eyes.

She did not say anything-her stomach was too busy performing some sort of somersault. Neither did he.

She turned her head away again in some confusion and looked about her once more. Her exuberance had not diminished, but added to it now was an acute physical awareness of Jonathan Smith. She wondered briefly if she would have had the nerve to do what she had done with him in Brussels if she had seen him dressed and on his feet or on horseback first and had realized what a very virile, vital man he was when he was not laid low by injuries.

She surely would have dashed from his room and never returned. Though perhaps not. She had not lain with him because he seemed weak and puny, after all, had she?

She had simply been mad, that was all. Irresponsibly insane. Insanely irresponsible.

And then she had agreed to this wild charade.

Once upon a time she had considered herself an almost drearily sensible girl. She had had to be in order to hold together her father's household.

But she did not dwell upon such thoughts. She was, against all the odds, enjoying herself. The distant trees were moving up far too fast. Soon they would be turning back to the stables, and her first lesson-if it could be called that-would be over. She was reluctant to admit even to herself that she would be sorry.

"Well?" he asked, breaking a lengthy silence as they drew near to the trees. He eased the horse to a walk.

"The ride is quite pleasant, I must confess," she said as primly as she could. "But I know beyond any doubt that I could not do this alone."

"Yes, you could and will," he said.

But he did not immediately turn back, as she had expected. He rode closer to the trees and then slowly among them, bending his head as she did when they seemed uncomfortably close to a branch. At the edge of the wood the grass was long, but then most of it disappeared, discouraged from growing, no doubt, by the thickness of leaves and branches overhead.

They did not proceed very far, but they could both hear the sound of running water when they stopped.

"Ah, I suspected as much," he said. "I believe there must be a river flowing through these woods to feed the lake. Shall we investigate?"

"The trees grow rather thickly here," she pointed out.

"Then we must go on foot," he told her. "Stay there. You will be quite safe for a moment."

And he swung down to the ground before wincing noticeably.

"You forgot about your wound, did you not?" she scolded while feeling very unsafe herself. "And you do not even have your cane with you."

But he was grinning again when he reached up and lifted her down, though she could see from his gritted teeth that the effort was causing him considerable pain.

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