The Ruin of Evangeline Jones by Julia Bennet

Author:Julia Bennet [Bennet, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Women’s Historical Fiction; British Historical Fiction; Historical Romance; Victorian Historical Fiction; Victorian Romance; Enemies to Lovers Romance; Duke hero; Aristocrat hero; Psychics & Mediums; Julia Bennet; Entangled Publishing; The Ruin of Evangeline Jones; Amara; The Harcastle Inheritance series; Historical Romance
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC (Amara)
Published: 2020-04-01T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Evie drifted toward wakefulness enveloped in glorious warmth. Tucked out of sight was the uneasy sense that she’d been worrying about something before she went to sleep. She pushed the feeling away and allowed herself to sink a little deeper.

She was safe.

Nothing could hurt her. Calm, she rose and fell with the warmth. His breaths, she realized. His heartbeat against her ear. His scent like cedar and other clean, woodsy things, all around her. His arms were around her too, something she’d never expected to feel again after yesterday’s disclosures.

Ah, there. The source of her disquiet: Captain and his schemes. The things she’d had to confess to Harcastle. How exposed she’d felt. Far worse than when he’d called her a fraud because he hadn’t known her then. A sensitive man, he had understood her fear and perhaps that was why he’d made disclosures of his own. Once he had done a dishonorable thing to save his sister, but Evie liked him the better for it.

These thoughts brought with them the remembrance of where she was. Despite this warmth, this almost peace that beckoned her, she needed to rise before someone found them. When she forced her eyes open, the first thing she saw was her own hand resting on the crisp front of his impossibly white shirt, his fingers encircling her wrist, as though he’d placed her hand there against his chest.

Slowly, she tilted her head back, half expecting to find his sardonic gaze on her. She even braced for whatever sarcastic remark he might make. But no, he was asleep. Eyes shuttered by unfairly long lashes. Head leaning sideways in a position that would surely leave him with an awful crick in his neck when he awoke.

She eased back slightly. Enough to see him a little better but not so much that she wasn’t still almost flush against him. How different he looked in repose. As inscrutable as he was, she could always see his mind at work. Evaluating, calculating, and, like her, always questioning. For once, he was serene, a crease between his brows the only sign his dreams might be less than sweet. Her fingers itched to smooth that small crinkle away, and with that urge came a surge of affection that made her stomach drop.

She’d always known she desired him, that she was infatuated with him. These things on their own were disaster enough. But she was in much deeper than even she’d realized. Affection? And for a man who strove to unearth every secret merely because it amused him?

Yet, was that his sole motivation? A shrewd question and one she ought to want answered for her own safety. Unfortunately, she wanted the answer for the silliest reason imaginable; because she wanted to know him. Most particularly at this moment, she wanted to know why he wasn’t happy. Somehow she could tell he wasn’t.

Irritation ought to accompany the thought. After all, why should a rich, powerful, and well-fed aristocrat be discontented? But the expected feeling didn’t come.

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