Free Seduced Bride-To-Be by June Richards Page B

His eyes were dark and watchful and his nose must
have been broken. Long dark, hair hung around his face in drying curls and a black
short beard covered his cheeks and jaw. Not enough, however, for Dinah not to
see the terrible scars disfiguring a big part of his left cheek. Dinah had a
feeling that she had seen him before.
    ‘You
probably wonder where I got those’ he said and the directness of his statement
made her blush.
    ‘I
am sorry, sir. I did not mean to stare.’
    ‘Do
not apologise. Everybody does. Stare, I mean. Even growing a beard did not help
much.’ His mouth twitched in a bitter smile. ‘An explosion during a battle in
the Pyrenees. I am very lucky to be alive, actually. But let us not talk of me.
You were supposed to tell me why your life is deprived of adventures.’
    Dinah
looked him in the eye. His way of speaking in short, direct sentences made her
suddenly abandon all proprietary and answer in the same manner.
    ‘Because
I am a woman, sir. I have been brought up to obey my father and soon I am to
learn to obey my husband.’
    ‘And
who is to be your husband?’ he asked and a curious gleam lit his black eyes.
    ‘Lord
Timsbury’ Dinah said bitterly.
    ‘Don’t
you like Lord Timsbury? I have met him on occasion, I believe, and he seemed
pleasant enough. Besides, he had a reputation of being a very good soldier.’
    ‘Well,
you know more about him than I, sir. I have not had a pleasure of meeting the
gentleman. It is my father’s wish that I marry him. Such an honour for a
merchant’s daughter to marry a title!’
    ‘Is
that all what he is to you, Miss Benson, a title?’
    ‘Not
to me, Captain Legrant, to my father. He does business with Lord Timsbury. And
if you are, by any chance, feeling sorry for the man, do not forget that for
him I am probably just another piece of goods in a transaction.’
    He
seemed startled by her choice of phrase, but she was past caring. Somehow, in
this forest lodge, with an unknown man for company, she felt an urge to be free
of all pretence that duty and upbringing forced her to adopt.
    ‘Do
you mind if I sit down by the fire?’ she asked and not waiting for an answer
she took her half empty glass of brandy and sat on a fur rug in front of the
fireplace.
    She
felt rather than heard the man sitting just behind her.
     
    ‘A
title marrying money. How crude it sounds when you put it like that, Miss
Benson.’
    She
was sitting just in front of him and Alex had to fight an urge to caress her
neck. Her red hair shone in the firelight. She smelled faintly of roses. His
eyes were on the knot of her belt. It did not look very tight. If he just
pulled it… Her voice brought him back to his senses.
    ‘How
else shall I put it? It is hard for me to think well of Lord Timsbury. Papa
says that it is not the money that he is interested in. Apparently, he had seen
me riding in a park when we last visited London and he was charmed by my
beauty. But, for some reason, he did not introduce himself. How am I supposed
to believe that?’
    ‘Maybe
he has got his reasons not to make your acquaintance as yet. And why should you
not believe a man capable of falling for your beauty?’
    She
turned abruptly and faced him.
    ‘Do
not mock me, Captain Legrant! My beauty?’
    ‘You
are a very beautiful girl, Dinah’ he said quietly, his voice slightly hoarse.
    In
her agitation, she did not seem to notice that he used her first name.
    ‘How
can I be beautiful? So skinny and with my red hair. And those freckles!’
    ‘Your
hair is your greatest asset. And, slender as you are, you are certainly full in
all the right places’ his gaze lowered to her breasts, now rising and falling
very fast. ‘As for freckles, a man just wants to kiss each of them.’
     
    She
should be shocked by his words, slap him, scream, anything! Instead she looked
into his damaged, but oddly attractive face, and let herself imagine what it
would be like to be kissed by him. She remembered the strength of his