Free The Shadow Queen by Rebecca Dean Page A

or a cousinly kiss on the cheek. Wallis didn’t mind. Cousinly kisses weren’t the kind she wanted to experience.
    Side by side, but not touching, they walked into the barn and down its wide central walkway. Several horses’ heads protruded inquisitively from the loose boxes, but Wallis couldn’t see any that were familiar.
    “Pa has been doing a lot of buying and selling lately,” Henry said, reading her thoughts. “One of his latest acquisitions is perfect for you. A three-year-old filly with a gentle disposition. At the moment she’s out being exercised.”
    He stopped in front of the end box. “This is the Southern gentleman I wanted to show off. His name is Thunder and he’s pretty darn special, don’t you think?”
    Riding was simply a challenge Wallis had set herself, and now that thanks to Henry she was fairly competent at it, she had no real interest in horseflesh. Even she, though, could tell that the horse in question was special. He was black as sin with a white star on his muzzle so perfect it looked as if it had been painted.
    “He has the best head I’ve ever seen on a horse,” Henry said, “and he’s as fast as the wind.” He turned his head away from Thunder to look at her, saying with a grin, “Not a horse for you to ride, Wallis.”
    “No.” There was a look in Thunder’s eyes that made Wallis reluctant to even stretch her hand out toward him. “I’m not even tempted, Henry.”
    “But you do want to ride again this summer?”
    Though the great doors at either end of the barn were open to let a cooling breeze blow through, the interior of the barn was in deep shade. Combined with the smell of hay and manure and horseflesh, it made for an arousingly intimate atmosphere.
    “Yes.” She held his eyes, glad there were no stable boys around to spoil the moment. “Of course I do.”
    He was wearing riding boots and breeches and a checked linen shirt that was open at the neck. He’d obviously already been out riding, for there were beads of perspiration on his throat. She couldn’t take her eyes from them. He had to kiss her now. He had to.
    He made a small movement preparatory to moving away from her, and, knowing she was about to lose her chance of equaling Pamela in the being-kissed-by-a-mature-man stakes, she shot a hand out, laying it against a bulging bicep.
    For a split second he hesitated, heat flooding his eyes, and then in sudden capitulation he pulled her roughly against him, lowering his head to hers.
    The shock of actually being kissed in such a way after dreaming about it for so long nearly made Wallis forget all she had learned from Pamela’s experience with Sergei Romanov. As Henry’s lips parted hers, she remembered and, sliding her arms up and around his neck, obligingly allowed his tongue to slide past hers in the way men seemed to like.
    Unlike Pamela, who had found the experience very peculiar and more than a little unpleasant, Wallis found it dizzyingly arousing.
    Breathing hard, Henry finally lifted his head from hers. “You’re a minx, Cousin Wallis. And far too old for your years,” he said thickly. “You’re also a Warfield and you’re not to go around letting anyone else kiss you like this. If you do, you’ll get a reputation for being fast, and then you’ll never get a decent marriage proposal from anyone. Understand?”
    “Yes,” she said, understanding very well.
    “I think you should go back to the house. Spend some time with my mother. Give her all the Baltimore gossip. We’ll go riding together tomorrow and then, the day after, I’m leaving on a visit to some of Pa’s friends in Charlottesville.”
    She nodded, knowing very well why he was leaving for a stay in Charlottesville. Uncomfortably aware of her age, he was putting distance between the two of them. That he was doing so because he found her such a very great temptation filled her with elation. That there would be very few further such kisses between the two of them didn’t trouble