The Taming of the Rake by Kasey Michaels

Author:Kasey Michaels
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical romance, Fiction
ISBN: 9781459208933
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2011-07-27T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“YOU’RE LOST, aren’t you?”

Chelsea sat primly and rather self-righteously on a fallen log, watching as Beau consulted his hand-drawn map for at least the fourth time. He’d look at it, look at their surroundings and frowningly consult the map again. Pace about the high, rolling meadow where they’d decided to rest the horses, and then look at the map once more. Possibly he thought it would change.

If he’d lifted his fine, aristocratic nose to sniff the air like a hound, she wouldn’t have been the least surprised.

They’d had a pleasant morning, all things considered, and Chelsea considered the fact that she could even glance in his direction, let alone hold a conversation with him to be an achievement worthy of some sort of award for courage.

They had been, for wont of any other word to explain what had happened, intimate last night. Now, today, they were strangers, about as far apart as two people could be without one of them leaving the country. The world certainly was a funny place.

It hadn’t precisely been a pleasant morning, especially as they’d started out in the gray light of dawn, heading back, or so Beau had told her, to the Great North Road and Gateshead.

Which, he also had informed her, was approximately fifty miles below the Scottish border.

Which, she had then informed him, sounded as far away as the moon.

Which, alas, had probably been a nasty thing to say, because he’d gotten this sort of pinched look around his mouth, asked her if she felt uncomfortable in the saddle, and when she had begun to ask him why he’d ask that and then realized why he’d asked that, and lifted her chin and told him coldly that she was fully recovered, thank you very much, well, then they hadn’t spoken again until now.

She had learned something else about this man she was going to marry. He was a worrier. That usually went hand-in-hand with having a conscience. He was a man who cared, who considered the consequences—sometimes after the fact, granted, but it was nice to know he hadn’t just taken when she’d offered. What she’d all but thrown at his head, actually. Perhaps she was the one who should be endeavoring to develop a conscience. He was making her look rather shallow in comparison, for her conscience didn’t seem to be bothering her at all this morning, except to occasionally inquire as to why it wasn’t bothering her.

She supposed she should have complimented him last night. Said thank you, or something. Did a woman say thank you to the man who had just deflowered her—and wasn’t that a silly term for the thing. She had nothing to compare last night to, but she was fairly certain that it had gone rather well. He’d seemed…satisfied.

For her part, she’d been shocked, surprised, confused, eager, hesitant, anxious and so many other things all at the same time that she wasn’t quite sure what she felt. Except she’d like to try it again, so that she could sort out what exactly she’d felt most.

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