Free An Accidental Seduction by Lois Greiman

roughly to the ground, disappeared like a wraith into the darkness.
    “Me lady!” Gallagher’s brogue broke the sharp silence.
    “Here.” Her voice was shaking, her elbows bruised where she had landed on them. She shifted now, ready to rise, but he was there, reaching for her. She let him help her, let him gather her gently against his chest.
    “Lass, you’re shaking. What happened?”
    “I don’t…” She shifted her gaze to the dark walnut trees that ringed the towering stone house. “I don’t know. A man…” Her voice failed her.
    “What man?”
    “I’ve no idea.”
    “Lady Tilmont!” Gregors’s cultured voice seemed strident and coarse after the Irishman’s soothing brogue. In a moment he was there beside them, lantern swaying from his uplifted hand. Seeing them together in the darkness, he locked his attention on Savaana. “What goes on here?”
    “Take her to the house,” Gallagher said.
    “See here—” Gregor began, but the other brooked no objections.
    “Now!” he ordered, and turning, melted silently into the darkness.

Chapter 6
    S avaana moved straight and true down the stairway. Her nose was lifted at the perfect angle, her fingers skimmed the rail, her tread was light on the rose-hued carpet.
    She was Lady Tilmont, wealthy, well-bred, refined. She was married now and ’twas her duty to care for this lowly estate, even if it was miles from civilization. Thus she wouldn’t dwell on the attack, for it would do her no good. Perhaps the villain had been a wandering tradesman…with a highly refined accent. Or perhaps it had been the flirty Irishman himself. He had not, after all, shown up until after her attacker had disappeared. Of course, she had heard his voice calling from a distance while the other man was still clasping her arms, but that proved nothing. Not in her mind. Who knows what kind of shenanigans the Irishman might be able to conjure? He was a Celt, after all, and therefore suspect by nature.
    Another possibility flitted fitfully through her mind,but she swatted it down, kept it silent. For now. For a little longer.
    An hour or so after the incident, Gallagher had come to the house to proclaim that he had seen no sign of an intruder. But then he wouldn’t, would he? Not if he himself were the culprit. Maybe he only wished to scare her. To frighten her into his arms. But that would never work. She was no wilting lily, though she had been something of a shaken lily.
    To battle her nerves, Margarite had suggested she partake of her favorite beverage. The Tuica seemed as strong as turpentine against her throat. She’d coughed a little but finished the plum brandy posthaste. After that she went to bed and slept until well after noon, breakfasting on poached eggs and muffins. But now she was ready to meet the world.
    “Gregors.” Her voice was strong and demanding. He appeared in a heartbeat, bowing stiffly. She looked sternly down her nose at him. “See that the wagon is made ready.”
    “The wagon, my lady?” Although his expression remained perfectly unchanged, she could hear the uncertainty in his voice, and in that instant she felt a tiny chink fall from her carefully polished armor.
    Her mind spun for the correct word. Not caravan. Hack? Cart? Toboggan?…Oh hell! She was Lady Tilmont, she remembered, and raised her chinanother notch. “Do you not speak the king’s English, Gregors?”
    Had she been asked, she would not have thought it possible for him to stiffen even more. She would have been wrong.
    “Might you mean the cabriolet, my lady?”
    Cabriolet. Well hell, of course that’s what she meant. She gave a disdainful nod. “See that it’s made ready,” she repeated, and turned back up the stairs.
    He cleared his throat. “’Tis a bit late in the day for a sojourn to London, is it not, baroness?”
    She turned back, heart beating just a little too fast. Surely the hearts of well-bred ladies did not beat more than once or twice an hour. “Did you hear me