Free Enraptured by Candace Camp

eyes lit up with scholarly fervor. She came around the table, leaning in to read the yellowed pages.
    Her hair fell forward, brushing his hand on the table, and Coll jerked reflexively. He curled his fingers into his palm, resisting the urge to take the silky strand between his fingers. Her scent teased at him, faint and surprisingly feminine and flowery. His tongue had welded to the top of his mouth.
    â€œThis looks like a recipe.” Violet looked at him.
    Coll knew he should say something. Had to say something. But all he could think of was how soft and rosy and inviting her lips were and what it would feel like to sink his mouth into hers.
    â€œI . . . um . . .” He shifted, tearing his eyes from her faceand focusing on the journal. “Yes. Faye wrote down remedies in there as well. It’s a mix of things, really—what she did, what she thought, recipes for some of the cures that had been handed down for generations through the Munro women. I was looking for a salve for one of Meg’s patients. Since she’s not here, he came to me.”
    â€œYour sister is a healer?” Violet stared at him. “The countess?”
    â€œAye.” Coll stiffened. Now, he thought, she would pull back; after the surprise would come the condescension that had been amazingly missing this morning when he’d revealed his low birth. He had been prepared for it then, but now he dreaded it.
    â€œYour ancestors were healers as well? It has been handed down from mother to daughter for years? This is wonderful.”
    â€œIt is?”
    â€œYes, of course. I told you how interested I am in the customs and traditions of a people. Knowledge that has been passed through generations like that is remarkable.” Violet dropped into the chair beside him. “There are so few written records of folk remedies.”
    â€œMy grandmother was the first of her family to read and write.”
    â€œNot surprising. When was this written?”
    â€œSeventeen forty-seven.”
    â€œSixty years ago! It is more astonishing, really, that she was literate.” Violet ran a finger lightly along the edge of the cover. Coll watched her, his nerves tightening. It was far too easy to imagine her finger trailing over his skin. “This is very precious. May I?” She glanced inquiringly at him, her hand poised over the book.
    â€œWhat? Oh, yes, of course.”
    She began to turn the pages slowly, even reverently. She commented and asked questions, and Coll answered as best he could. It was difficult to concentrate with her only inches away. It was too easy, too pleasurable, to watch the way her eyes lit or to notice the shadow her lashes made upon her cheeks, to gaze at the movement of her lips, the velvety softness of her skin. He could not help but imagine how her skin would feel beneath his fingers, how her lips would taste.
    He realized that Violet was watching him expectantly, and he knew that she must have asked him a question. He swallowed, his mind a blank. Her eyes were locked on his, dark and fathomless, pools a man could fall into, he thought, and never again surface. Her lips parted, but she said nothing. It would take so little to kiss her, to lean in and take her mouth . . .
    Coll pulled back abruptly. “ I . . . um, I’m sorry. I was not . . . I did not hear what you said.”
    A flush rose in Violet’s cheeks. “I asked—I hoped I could look at this journal again.”
    â€œYes, of course. Whenever you’d like . . .” He was sliding into far too dangerous a territory here. It had been one thing to kiss her the other night on the road. Then it had been merely flirtation and she a woman whom he would not see again. But now . . . now he knew she was a lady, and if that did not place her far enough beyond his reach, she was a guest of the earl’s, which put her under his care.
    He made himself stand