Free Hunting for Love by Virginia Nelson

HUNTING
FOR LOVE
     
     
    Virginia
Nelson
     
    Copyright
© 2013
     
     
     
    Chapter
One
     
    The dream always started exactly the same way.   In the bedroom with the silk wallpaper, she spritzed herself with scent and adjusted her breasts in the
tight corset.   Almost dizzy with the combination
of excitement and the restriction of the whalebone, she gazed back at her face
and smiled a little.
    The book she found in the library detailed sexual ideas
she’d not considered, but looked forward to trying.   He should be there any time now and her heart
fluttered in anticipation.
    The clock struck twelve times, the gong resounding down the
hall and muffling the knock at her window.
    Opening the curtains, she pushed open the pane, and pulled
him inside.
    “I knew you would come, Henry.”
    “We have to talk.”
    Brushing his words aside, she went up on tiptoes to join
their lips.   No words they exchanged
compared to the feeling of his mouth capturing hers.   Their bodies spoke a language more powerful
than any other.
    Seeming as swept away with passion as she was, his fingers
delved into her hair, destroying the curls she had so artfully piled on top of
her head for him. She didn’t care.   He
could crush the silk of her dress, muss her hair, and bruise her flesh with the
dig of his fingertips in the height of passion. None of it mattered.
    Not so much as her desperate need for him.
    He broke off the kiss.   “I said we needed to talk.”
    Unsure, she folded her hands together like the demure lady
society dubbed her to be.   “About?”
    “You’ve been cuckolding me.   I got a letter and—”
    She moved fast, slapping his face with the full force of her
weight.   For once she didn’t worry about
the noise waking the household.
    “Bastard.   How dare you accuse me of giving my body to another?”
    Spinning on her heel, she fled for the door only to have his
hand close over hers on the handle.   He
jerked the key from the lock and pitched it out the open window.
    Diving for the key, she nearly plunged through the window
before he pulled her back, and threw her onto the bed, further infuriating her.   With one move of his powerful arms, he
barricaded the window with the wardrobe.
    “I said we needed to talk.   Not that you needed to fly into a temper.”
    “How dare you?”
    “Your fiery nature inflames me, drowns my common sense and
muddles my thoughts.   How am I to know
you’re not doing the same to other men?”   His calm words delivered blows to her pride and bruised her heart, but
the heaving of his chest under the crisp whiteness of his cravat caught her
eye.   The devil of a man.   Even when he infuriated her, his body called
to hers.
    “You’re a fool, then.   I would never touch another, never share what I
share with you, with any other man.”
    Again she made to flee and his hands closed on her arm.   “Louisa.”
    Pulling free of him, she struggled with her skirts in an
attempt to dive across the bed, not sure where her escape would be but
determined to find one.   Bumping the
vanity, she heard the clatter but didn’t stop to look and see what it was.
    But when she crashed into the wardrobe, a heavy vase she
stored there fell off the top, landing on Henry’s head.
    He crumpled like a rag doll.
    In a billow of skirts, she discarded her escape in
worry.   Touching his face, she cringed at
the trickle of blood and the bruised, already swelling knot.   “Henry?”
    Smacking his cheek gently, she tried to rouse him.   Her hand, when she focused on it, shook in
fear.   She hadn’t meant to hurt him.
    Then she smelled the smoke.
    The candelabra had fallen off the dresser in their scuffle
and ignited the drapes.   The fire spread,
quickly and greedily, to the canopy above her bed and she redoubled her efforts
to wake him as she watched the flames devour the fabric.
    Failing that, she tried to push at the wardrobe.   It wouldn’t budge.
    She spun and tried the door.   Pounding on