The Captain Claims His Lady by Annie Burrows

Author:Annie Burrows
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-05-02T15:43:07+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

He’d kissed her. Oh, my word, he’d kissed her! And held her tight.

And yes, admittedly, it had all been over in a flash. And then he’d set her away from him, and said he shouldn’t have done it, that in fact they should not have stayed in the coffee room when he’d seen there was nobody else there to act as chaperon.

But the point was, he had done it.

She couldn’t have told anyone later exactly how she’d got home. His servant might have taken her in the little carriage, or she might have walked, it made no difference. Because she felt as if she’d floated there, the way the seeds of a dandelion clock soared on the current after someone plucks them and blows upon them.

Now, finally, she could believe that he really had followed her here, after the brief time they’d shared in Bath, because he wanted her. He hadn’t been able to resist kissing her, had he?

And he’d been avoiding her, ever since. As though he daren’t be alone with her any more, or who knew what might happen?

It made her giggle, as she lay in bed at night, to think of herself as irresistible. Sometimes she’d press her fingers to her lips in wonder, recalling the way her heart had pounded and her blood had surged when he’d pulled her, so suddenly and almost roughly, into his arms.

It was Sunday before she saw him again. Standing under the shelter of the lych gate, clearly waiting for her. For the moment Grandfather’s carriage came to a standstill he darted forward, an umbrella at the ready, to shelter them as they made their way through the graveyard.

As she placed her hand upon his sleeve she could picture herself as a bride, walking along this same path, she really could. With him at her side. Because he’d really meant all those things he’d said about her eyes and her hair, and so on. For some strange reason, he really did find her attractive.

And what was more, she felt attractive when she was with him. No longer an awkward, burdensome creature who never fit in anywhere.

She’d drifted right up to the church door in a cloud of imaginary orange blossom before she noticed he wasn’t in the same frame of mind. On the contrary, as he folded up his umbrella and leant it against the porch wall, she caught an expression on his face that was positively grim.

Could he still be feeling guilty over behaving improperly, as he’d put it, after kissing her? Or was that stern expression, that tightly clenched jaw due to him struggling to behave properly now?

She almost giggled at the thought of him wrestling with the urge to snatch a kiss as they ducked under the low arch of the church door.

No, she mustn’t indulge in such flights of fancy. Not in church. She bent her own head in penitence as soon as she took her place in Grandfather’s pew, determined to adopt a more proper frame of mind.

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