Free Untouched by Anna Campbell Page B

turned out to be meticulously kept records of botanical experiments.
    The marquess’s writing was clear and beautiful. Not at all how she imagined the jottings of a madman.
    She excused her behavior by saying it was perfectly natural to pry. He was the only other denizen of this well-appointed
    hell and she was at his mercy.
    But she admitted in her heart she was obsessed with the marquess. Did he avoid her because he sensed her unhealthy
    interest? No virtuous woman should be so physically aware of a man who wasn’t her husband. He was young and
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    beautiful and she’d been trapped for months in a world of decay and death. Her blood warmed at the sight of a strong
    hand reaching for a wine glass. A hand that didn’t shake, a hand unmarred with the brown stains of old age.
    She sighed, impatient with herself. She could pursue evidence in margins like a hunter tracking deer through a thicket. Or
    she could try and catch her quarry in the open. The sun shone, the day was fresh and she was sick to death of her own
    edgy company. Perhaps if she spent more time with him, the mad marquess would lose his fascination and become just
    another man.
    Perhaps.
    As she rose, she straightened her shoulders the way her brother Philip always had before a fencing lesson. Lessons the
    young Grace would sneak into the ballroom to watch. The memory of her glittering older brother brought the usual grief.
    Even though it was two years since she’d learned of his death, she still hardly believed all that shining promise lay in cold
    earth.
    No more sorrow. It was time to act. “En garde, my lord,” she whispered, and left to face her enigmatic opponent.
    Grace found the marquess holed up with his roses. He had his back to her and did something abstruse with what looked
    to her uneducated eyes like a dead stick.
    “What do you want?” he growled without glancing up. How did he know she hovered in the brick archway behind him?
    She wiped her damp palms on the skirts of her garish yellow gown. She’d been busy with needle and thread so at least
    this dress fitted, even if it was too tight across the bosom. Mrs. Filey had returned the black bombazine but in this warm
    weather, it itched.
    Determined to start as she meant to proceed, she raised her chin. “A charming greeting, my lord.”
    He still didn’t turn, but the long muscles of his back tensed under his loose white shirt. “I’m occupied, madam. Perhaps
    whatever it is can wait until dinner.”
    “Yes, it probably could, but I’ll have lost my nerve by then,” she muttered, hoping he wouldn’t hear. But his hearing, like
    all his other senses from what she could tell, was preternaturally sharp.
    “Well, all right, say what…” There was a pause, a sharp crack, then, “Damnation!”
    She flushed at his language but didn’t retreat. “You should know by now swearing at me won’t chase me off.”
    At last he faced her. As she’d expected, his expression was stiff with well-bred annoyance. At such times, she had no
    difficulty picturing him as the haughty cynosure of society. “I’ve just wasted three hours’ work.”
    “What?” Her attention fell to what he held. The dead stick was now two dead sticks. She raised mortified eyes to his.
    “I’m so sorry.”
    He met her gaze and she wondered what he was thinking. Then his lips twisted in a grimace and he tossed the sticks onto
    his rubbish pile. “Hell, what does it matter? It isn’t as if I haven’t time to do it again. Time is all I’ve got in this bloody
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    cage.”
    The glimpse into his torment sent black shame swirling through her. She bit her lip. What right had she to badger him like
    a child demanding an adult’s notice? He didn’t owe her