Free What a Woman Desires by Rachel Brimble

boots thudded against the packed mud of the track and he looked up into her smiling face.
    Sitting sidesaddle, with her pretty blue eyes careful on his, he took a moment to absorb the sight of her. The squawk of the crows overhead broke the quiet, yet nothing distracted him from her beauty.
    Regret for his inability to resist caring too deeply for this woman seeped into his blood. He blew out a breath. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did last night.”
    Her gaze stayed on his for a long moment before her shoulders relaxed and she stared into the distance. “We were equally guilty in our quarrel. We were tired”—she faced him—“and maybe more than a little afraid of what happened with the men on the road, and what will happen now I’m back.”
    “The master’s funeral is tomorrow and many people will be at the church.” He hesitated. “Many people who lease homes and land from the estate.”
    The skin at her throat shifted. “I’m aware of that.”
    “And do you know what you will say to them?”
    Her cheeks flushed and she lifted her chin in that determined way of hers. “I will let them speak first and then do my utmost to allay their fears. There is little else I can do as I still have no idea what will happen the day after tomorrow, much less next week.”
    “But you will make no promises you cannot keep?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Good, because to do that would be foolhardy and dangerous. Desperate people, hungry people, make hotheaded decisions, and I cannot be there all the time to protect you.”
    Her eyes darkened and her shoulders rose. “Why would I need protecting? Many of the people who lease homes from us have known me since I was a child. I have never known an ounce of animosity from any of them. Why do you have to always be in such a state of doom?”
    He clenched his jaw. Didn’t she understand anything? “I am in a state of awareness rather than doom. You’d be wise to be the same. I’m trying to make you understand. Nothing more.”
    “Understand that you think so little of me? That you do not trust me as you once did? I understand that perfectly well.”
    His care for her wrenched at his heart, making him want to walk away and never look back. They were so different; their lives and desires a million miles from the other. He swallowed. “Why don’t I help you down and we’ll walk awhile?”
    Her eyes narrowed as she studied him and waged the certain war going on inside her. After a few seconds, she shimmied forward, clutching her skirts in her hand. He stepped closer before reaching up and clasping his hands around her tiny waist. He gently lowered her to the ground so she stood trapped between him and Jake, the top of her head in kissing distance from his lips.
    She looked up and her blush deepened. “Thank you.”
    With his heart hammering, Thomas stood back and waved a hand in front of him. “After you.”
    She walked a few steps ahead of him and he relished the soft sway of her hips, the way the stark black of her dress looked against the yellowing fields on either side of them. Her hair was pinned at the sides and the rest left to fall in a thick, glossy lock toward her shoulder blades. God, what he’d give to touch her, to bury his face in her hair and remember her as he had so many years ago.
    On a single forbidden evening they’d clung to each other; their passion overtaking their senses. He’d kissed her, touched the skin on her face and collarbones, smelled her hair and whispered secrets of dreams and ambitions. Neither had spoken of how fortunate Jane’s merciful interruption had been. He had too often wondered if they would’ve been left alone much longer, whether their kisses might have grown more heated, and her soft sighs evolved to moans and pleas under his careful attention.
    He straightened his spine and forced his defenses back into place, and his desires behind lock and key where they would remain.
    She stopped and turned. “What were you