The Windflower by Laura London

Author:Laura London
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction / Romance / Historical / General, Fiction / Historical, Fiction / Romance / Erotica, Fiction / Romance / Historical / Regency
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2014-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

By eight bells, when she heard the watch change, yesterday’s headache had come back in force. By three bells that afternoon it had become so painful she could barely think. Room light hurt, and the incessant scrape of men walking and working above hurt. The steadily rolling dip of the vessel became agonizing. Earlier she had been sure that it must be her unexamined fear about what Devon was going to do to her that had created the demon throbbing under her scalp, but as the pain went on and grew worse she began to think perhaps it was the heat, which was as bitter here as the North American winter was cold. The air around her steamed, and she had begun to sweat like a mare, and the prickle of perspiration on her temples hurt too. She wet a towel in the water can, and without thinking to wring it out she sat at the table, burying her face in wet fabric as it splattered on the table and dripped over her forearms.

The room seemed like a furnace, and the pain in her head was like a swelling sun before she began to call weakly for Cat. Making her way to the door, whispering his name, she put her hand on the latch for balance, and surprisingly it gave. Why hadn’t they locked her in? She found the stairway and wobbled on deck, where a hurricane hit her of bouncing sunlight, and noise, and familiar faces she could hardly identify.

On the bow with Tom Valentine and Sails, Merry saw Devon, standing like a young Apollo with the shameless breezes molding and displacing the clothing around his body. His golden eyes discovered her quickly, and he broke off his conversation to come toward her with his fluid, springing step, holding out a hand to her.

“Merry!”

Sunbeams backlit him in a dazzling aura. To her tumultuous senses his approach and his gesture were a threat. She recoiled against a mast as she said, “Don’t touch me.”

He stopped a few feet away, his expression becoming wary. “Is there something wrong, Windflower?”

That unthinking use of his pet name for her was unsettling. God in heaven, he had his nerve asking her in that artless fashion if something was the matter. Why didn’t he look as warm as she was? Leaning her blood-hot head against the mast, she said, “I want you to let me go.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then he said, “No.”

“Yes!” she came back, almost screaming the word.

The brilliant eyes hardened. “You’ve been damned troublesome, do you know that? Give me one reason why I should accommodate you.”

“Common decency.” Merry bit off the words sharply.

“It’s rather late, isn’t it, to bring the virtues into this? Unless you think we’ll be able to make up for lost time.”

The swelling mound of the great canvas sail above her head slapped in the wind, attracting her unsteady fancy. When she looked back at Devon, her mind had frighteningly destroyed every memory of what they had been talking about, except that it had been hostile.

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.