Seduction Wears Sapphires by Renee Bernard

Author:Renee Bernard [Bernard, Renee]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical Romance
ISBN: 9780425235966
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2010-08-03T05:00:00+00:00

He never expected her to follow. He’d left the salon like a man with all the demons in hell at his heels. And suddenly, it was as if they were.

Wisps of memories long banished tangled with recollections of the dungeon that the Jaded shared and the strange balance he was sure the universe had kept by punishing him there. He’d been too fractured for recovery and hated the cause of all of it—his own weak and wanton nature.

“All misfortune is earned, either in this lifetime or a previous one, and a man must taste each drop of misery with a smile before he can achieve growth,” an old shaman had intoned when he’d first arrived in India, and Ashe had laughed because life was about pleasure—not pain! And then, the universe had enjoyed the last laugh as the flood-gates of agony had opened up on his head. . . . He’d fallen in love for the first time and brought nothing but misery and death to her doorstep in return. If there’d been joy, it was too fleeting to bring any comfort, and he’d lost the ability to feel anything before he’d been caught and hauled off to that dungeon. All misfortune is earned.

The American siren had brought it all to the surface with her dreamlike kisses and looks of disapproval. I’ll write my grandfather myself and see if there’s any chance of packing the puritan off before—

“Ashe!”

He heard her calling just as he started to gallop down the drive and realized with a shock that she’d taken him at his word. He reined in his horse and turned, struck with the horrifying sight of Miss Caroline Townsend wrestling with her horse as the mare took fright from Caroline’s full skirts flapping about its neck. The animal bolted in panic and he knew Caroline wasn’t going to make it past the stable arches. He spurred his own mount to try to reach her in time but could only watch helplessly as the grooms desperately ran forward to aid her—but not before she fell.

The world slowed, and Ashe felt severed from reality, the only sound his own ragged breathing in his ears as he closed the distance and jumped from his horse before it had even stopped running to try to get to her faster. “Caroline!”

He was at her side instantly, pulling her into his arms, fear choking him.

She pushed against him, an impatient and unwilling victim. “I’m fine!”

“I’m going to dismiss that groomsman for ever allowing you to—”

“You can’t! Poor James was nearly in tears when I practically stole that horse, and I would feel directly responsible! Please, don’t!” she pleaded.

“Poor James can keep his job then, but he’ll get a lecture from me about letting strange American women steal my horses,” he conceded begrudgingly.

She shifted away from him again and only managed to sit more squarely in the ice-cold muck. “This was not at all how I imagined it!”

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling

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