Free Forbidden by Rachel van Dyken, Kristin Vayden, Kelly Martin, Nadine Millard Page A

be expecting you for
dinner?"
    "Perhaps, but I am simply too tired," Mariah
lied, exaggerating the yawning and droopiness.
    Dora didn't look convinced, but she remained
quiet, for which Maria was very grateful.
    After a long soak, Mariah requested a supper
tray in her room, and as soon as she was done she crawled into
bed.
    This was fine, she thought, snuggling under
the heavy counterpane of her bed, if she could do this every day
there would be absolutely no problems at all.

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    There was a
problem.
    Mariah sighed in frustration and threw the
book she'd been reading onto the bedside table.
    She was going stark, raving mad holed up in
this house.
    For three days, she'd been to the library and
her bedroom, and that was it.
    Mercifully the snow had eased off and though
the roads were still completely impassable for her and her small
gig, a footman had been sent with word of her safety and forced
stay at the manor house and had returned with a few gowns.
Unfortunately, the gowns were accompanied by a sermon of some
magnitude on propriety and the ruination of women in society,
courtesy of a letter from her mother.
    But this? This self-imposed incarceration was
driving her slowly insane.
    Mariah stood and pulled back the curtains
which Dora had drawn earlier. The sky was cloudless, the complete
blackness dotted with shining stars and dominated by the pale,
ice-white moon.
    The moonlight illuminated the grounds lending
an ethereal glow to everything. It was peaceful and beautiful, yet
she felt restless.
    It was not even past the usual dinner hour
but she felt as though she'd been in this room for hours
already.
    What she needed, Mariah thought, was a drink;
brandy or whiskey or some such thing, to send her into a deep,
dreamless sleep.
    For her sleeps had been far from deep and
very, very far from dreamless. In fact, she could barely close her
eyes without Brandon Haverton galloping to the forefront of her
thoughts.
    Mariah didn't know many compromising
positions, but the ones she did know were put to good use during
the wee hours of the night when her imagination ran wild and she
ended up awakening feeling frustrated, hot and bothered.
    This was ridiculous and it needed to stop.
She hadn't even seen the man in days. Not since that last horrid
conversation in the drawing room.
    She was exhausted. She needed to sleep. And
she certainly needed to stop thinking about Mr. Haverton.
    Her mind made up, Mariah decided to brave the
corridors.
    From Dora she had learned that Mr. Haverton
had been keeping to his room and study, no doubt with the same
intentions she had in mind.
    So, in theory, it should be safe to dart
downstairs and sneak a drink from the drawing room, which she knew
was kept stocked.
    She did think fleetingly that it was rather
concerning to turn to alcohol to deal with life's problems, but
then she figured nobody had ever had to deal with a man such as
Haverton before and if they had, they would certainly be foxed more
often than not.
    The house was freezing as Mariah darted
through it. Thankfully, she hadn't yet changed into her night rail,
so if she did get caught she would brazen it out and ask for
tea.
    The drawing room was mercifully empty, and
Mariah heaved a sigh of relief as she moved toward the drinks
cabinet. She had thought a medicinal glass of wine would do the
trick but her hand stilled in the act of pouring as she eyed the
amber coloured brandy that Mr. Haverton favoured.
    The stuff had been vile. But, because clearly
she'd crossed into complete madness, she felt herself wanting to
drink it because he had been the one to provide her first
taste of it.
    How foolish of her.
    She silently berated herself as she sloshed
some of the liquid into a glass. Did she think that drinking his
brandy would suddenly bring them closer together? Did she think
that he would suddenly throw off his mantle of secretive sullenness
and fall desperately in love with her because she stole something
from his drinks