Whirlwind with a Wolfe by Emily Murdoch

Author:Emily Murdoch
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: 0
Published: 2019-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to prevent the shiver of excitement that rushed through Alice at what Miss Louisa Bond could have experienced if she had chosen Emrick. His strong arms around her, that fine mouth pressed against hers, those hands…

The wind blustered around the hunting lodge, and Alice was startled. If she had been Louisa, she would not have been able to resist Emrick.

Alice hesitated. She was not entirely sure she could resist him now. Every part of her body tingled whenever she looked at him, and there was something unusual in the way he looked at her. As though he could see through her.

“You could not possibly understand.” Emrick’s voice cut through the silence. “Being such an honorable young lady, there is no way I could explain it to you in words. You are a well-bred lady, after all, ignorant of the world. Why, you are so nobly born that you have never done a day’s work in your life.”

His words stung, though he did not mean them to. Alice considered the pile of mending awaiting her return and the petticoat she had burned and would likely have to pay for out of her own wages. The silver jewellery waiting for her to polish, all tangled because Louisa never took much care of her possessions.

“I think I can understand hard work,” she said quietly. “Besides, despite what you may think of me, I have had my own moments of rebellion.”

One of Emrick’s brows raised. “You will have to convince me, I am afraid. There is no way to hide the elegant breeding of your family, Miss Alice Reynolds. You expect me to believe you once ran riot around your family home?”

Alice genuinely laughed. It was the first true laughter since she had stepped into the hunting lodge, and it put Emrick at ease as nothing else had.

“I think you would be very much surprised at the mischief I have been up to lately,” she said, with complete honesty. “Even as a young chit, there was nothing I liked more than to get into scrapes.”

If they had met at another time, with no Louisa in sight… If they had first touched hands at a ball, rather than when he kidnapped her…

“Tell me,” he said. “It would do me good to hear of your adventures.”

Alice swallowed. It would not do to reveal her days as a gentlewoman and then share how she had been reduced to a servant. She would have to tell stories of her childhood, rather than her more recent escapades.

With a nervous smile she said, “Well, for a start, I accidentally burned down my father’s carriage when I was nine.”

She could predict his response, and yet Emrick exceeded her expectations.

“You did what?”

Alice laughed. “It was an accident! I had found my father’s tinder box.”

“And you burned his carriage?”

A flush tinged her cheeks, and it made Emrick laugh all the more as she said defensively, “Well, how was I to know it would go up in flames at such a rate?”

Emrick shook his head, a broad smile on his face.

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