Free Passion's Joy by Jennifer Horsman Page A

trepidation and fear. "So," he said gently, "he remains unaware of what you're up to?"
    "Sometimes I think he suspects but then—" She looked away again, studying the distance as though to discover something. "Cory provides excuses for my absence, while the Reverend—" Instantly, her gaze shot to his face to see his reaction.
    "I thought I already established I'm not going to turn you in," he replied easily. "Which brings me back to my original question in all this. Tell me your name."
    "Joy Claret."
    "Ah, Joy Claret. I might have guessed you'd have an unusual name." He laughed. "I can easily imagine why a woman would name her daughter that. Joy upon birth, yet all from a single night of passion, one owing to a bottle of claret."
    He was right of course and she blushed. She had yet to decide if she liked her name or not. Her mother had been a language teacher at a prominent English girls' school, her father—Joshua's
    older brother—a language teacher at Cambridge. Her mother, like so many women, died at her birth; her father died two years later in London's worst cholera epidemic to date.
    Joshua told her many stories about them. He painted a picture of two hot-headed and eccentric people who, like all members of the Reubens family, were fanatics on the subject of religion—Methodist—and slavery. Joy was inordinately proud of her mother's role as a founding member of the prestigious anti-slavery society, the English Christian Women's Society of Abolitionists. She had also fought hard for the rights of women to speak publicly. There were no children from the ill-conceived union until the twenty-third year of marriage. Her parents went from one argument to the next without stopping to catch breath and her name told her the rest.
    Ram marveled at the emotions playing in her eyes. "So," he continued, wanting to know more. "Tell me what your relationship is to that old drunk at the bar?"
    Joy stared in sudden alarm. "You do know!"
    When he nodded, she shocked him by throwing herself against him with clenched fists and begging, "Oh, please tell me you won't hurt him! He's done you no harm—"
    Ram caught her arms to hold her still and said with tempered anger, "That man does not deserve your concern, which I can only surmise comes from some undeserved affection. Your guardian is bad enough, but I shudder to think how that man would come to your defense in there, drunk as he was. And he obviously has quite a lot to do with your very presence in there—as well as in the forest."
    Each angry word lashed at her, causing a slight jerk of her head, obviously scaring her witless. Yet each time he witnessed her blatant femininity, the obvious fragility and vulnerability, his anger rose. He simply could not reconcile it with her previous actions.
    His anger merely reduced her to sputtering imbecility, yet anger was not the cause of her fear. Her body melted against his with a treacherous enthusiasm that sent shock waves through her. His hands pressed the small of her arched back, holding her softer form against the hard muscles of his. The startling sensations that swept through her—vaguely reminiscent of the sweet warmth brought by her silly school girl fantasies—caused a tensing, not at all unpleasant. At the points where their bodies touched, a quivering of tingling excitement spread through her abdomen. Her reaction alarmed her with an instinctual, primitive force, a gasp. "Loose me," she begged breathlessly, attempting to pull away only to hear his capricious chuckle, warm, yet menacing as he caught her hands, holding them captive behind her back.
    "I believe you insisted on the position. In turn I'll insist on the outcome."
    Instantly, she tried squirming loose only to realize that this was absolutely the wrong thing to do. The shock of feelings, no less than his sharp intake of breath, stopped her instantly.
    Ram had as many ways of kissing a woman as the sun had of shining. All depended on his mood, his inclination, his