Midnight in Your Arms by Morgan Kelly

Author:Morgan Kelly [KELLY, MORGAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

* * *

The first day of the house party was the single longest and most boring of Alaric’s life.

Guests—invited for the weekend—had arrived in droves. They pressed in on him from all sides, filling up the guest rooms, spilling out from the drawing rooms, parlors, dining hall, ballroom, billiards room, library, conservatory, and every other usable room with which Stonecross was furnished. Alaric mingled amongst them, playing the gracious host with a radiant Ellen never straying far from his side. He could see what she was about: making sure the two of them seemed like one impenetrable unit, already joined in spirit if not in fact. Though she had no understanding what such a bond meant. Ellen thought husbands were little more than fashionable accessories, at the least. At the most, they were symbols of status, equally valuable and as inanimate as the ropes of glittering diamonds she displayed to full effect against the creamy, untouchable backdrop of her beautiful neck.

He thought of Laura’s neck, unadorned but for a series of beauty marks much lovelier than any string of pearls, no matter how costly. There was nothing pretentious about her. She was all frankness, and yet she was mysterious, something one could see clearly but could never fully comprehend. Like the night sky in a poem.

Except, of course, when he couldn’t see her at all. Like now. He longed for her, but he could not go to her. She didn’t exist, except when she stood in front of him. And wherever she was right now, he certainly didn’t exist for her. When he had believed at first that she was a figment of his own mind, he wasn’t far wrong. He was also a figment of hers. He wondered if she thought about him nearly as much as he thought about her. Perhaps it was their thoughts that brought them together.

At the moment, all he could think of was Laura.

Even when other ladies were in front of him, vying for his attention, his thoughts strayed to her, as though he could caress her with his mind, and she could feel it. He didn’t know what she was, or the meaning of her sudden appearance in his life. All he knew was the way he felt when she was with him, just looking at him with her large, dark eyes.

Understood. Loved. Safe.

And lit on fire, a torch burning from the inside out.

The room was damnably hot. Alaric tugged at his neckcloth—Jeffries tied it so bloody tight. And there were too many people about, pressing against him. Ellen had promised him it wouldn’t be a crush. He should have listened more closely when she tried to talk to him about the guest list. Alaric felt as though every person he had ever met since the day he was born was in his house. If he listened closely enough, over the din of laughter, clinking crystal, and the strains of music coming from the ballroom, where the string quartet labored to create the appropriate ambience, he might be able to hear the foundation of Stonecross groaning in protest.

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.