The Tempting of Thomas Carrick by Stephanie Laurens

Author:Stephanie Laurens [Laurens, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Romance, Scottish, Historical
ISBN: 9780778317821
Amazon: 077831782X
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2015-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Thomas quit the dining room shortly after Lucilla. He resisted the urge to reassure himself that she was safe in the still room; at his suggestion, Ferguson had stationed a footman in the lower passageway within sight of the still room door, with orders to go in and sit inside once Lucilla arrived.

While she remained on Carrick lands, until they solved the mystery of whatever was going on, and until he understood who had come to her room last night and why, she would be watched over.

Going out of the front door, he circled the house to the side terrace, where he could be assured of privacy while he paced.

Lucilla seemed to have shrugged off last night’s attack—if it had been an attack. He’d got the impression that, as in the end nothing had happened—and indeed, the incident had given her the opportunity to indulge in an activity she’d clearly wished to embrace—in her view all was… How had she put it? It is what it is, and I’m content with that. Although she’d been speaking of what lay between them, the same words seemed an accurate reflection of her attitude to the man who had crept up on her while she’d slept, a cushion clutched in his hands.

Thomas felt his face harden. It had to be comforting to have such faith and belief in fate, for want of a better term, but he was much less sanguine. He remained deeply unsettled by the incident. And, even more, by how it might connect with all the other odd things that had been, and apparently still were, going on.

Yet as he’d told her, the man could have been any clansman; everyone knew the manor doors were never locked, and most knew the layout of the house well enough to look for her in that particular wing.

But had the man actually intended to harm her —or had he come hoping to speak with her, perhaps to warn her, but he hadn’t wanted her to wake and scream?

That notion might seem far-fetched, yet Thomas knew of several men in the clan who were…unsophisticated enough to have thought that way.

Halting, he sighed. Turning, he looked out unseeing over the stretch of coarse lawn. The incidents were accumulating. While they yet lacked the evidence necessary to prove it, all the previous incidents up to last night had clearly been acts of malicious intent. The odds favored last night being another.

Which, in turn, suggested his inner conviction that Lucilla herself was in danger, that she, specifically, might now be in the perpetrator’s—a murderer’s—sights, could very well be true.

He remained staring, unseeing, out over the lawn as the minutes ticked by, then, his face feeling more like stone than flesh, he turned, walked back to the front door, and re-entered the house.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.