Free Chasing the Heiress by Rachael Miles Page A

broadly as he pointed.
    Lucy laughed out loud. “This should be interesting.”
    From his bed, Colin strained to see what Fletcher had picked. “Why are you talking to Fletcher when I’m the one who is paying for your time?” Colin had made the agreement with Nell, he told himself, because he needed to know Lucy better before he could consider taking her with them as Jennie’s companion. But, in truth, all day he had missed Lucy’s teasing tongue and her quick wit. He’d even tried to amuse himself by making absurd statements and predicting what she would say in response. But none of his imagined retorts surprised and delighted him as much as hers did. The game had only made him want her company more.
    â€œFletcher indicates that you like Fox and Geese.” Her cheeks were still flushed from the heat of the kitchen.
    â€œI last played when I was a boy.” He shifted toward the center of the bed, hoping she would sit beside him. Instead, she placed the basket on the bed and pulled a chair forward.
    â€œFletcher chose it first off, so I would wager—if we were allowed to wager—that it’s your favorite.” Few people teased him as regularly, and successfully, as Lucy, and it made him feel whole in a way he hadn’t felt in months.
    â€œLet me see what’s in that basket.” Colin began to rummage, pulling out dominoes, card decks, marbles, and dice. Near the bottom, he discovered two double-sided board games. “Backgammon on the front, chess on the back, and this one pairs checkers with Fox and Geese.” Under the games were four small books.
    â€œHorace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto . Know anything about it?”
    â€œIt’s a ghost story. Terrifying, especially if you read it by candlelight.”
    â€œThen you’ll have to read it to me by candlelight.” With satisfaction, he watched her cheeks flush a slightly deeper crimson.
    â€œOur agreement is to keep you company during the day .” She turned her nose up at his suggestion, establishing the boundaries of their flirtation, if a flirtation it was.
    â€œI suppose no Otranto then—I would hate not to find the terrifying bits terrifying.” He turned back to the basket, his mood already improving. “Let’s see: three more. Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War or part four of A History of the Buccaneers of America .”
    â€œDoes the Thucydides start with volume one?” She opened the book to its title page.
    â€œWhat? No pirates?” Colin felt lighter in her presence, less burdened by the past and his choices.
    â€œI prefer my history to be ancient. Besides, I refuse to read any books except from the beginning. In the camps, books circulated from hand to hand, but one could rarely read all the volumes or read them in the right order. Half the time, the volume I’d be reading would end abruptly, and I could never find the next volume. What’s our last option?”
    He picked up a battered book with no spine and opened to the title page. “It’s in Spanish. El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha .” He spoke the words with an almost perfect accent.
    â€œIt sounds like you can read that yourself, or I can read it to you. In Lisbon, one could easily find interesting things to read, if one was willing to translate.”
    He opened Quixote to the first page, “I picked up a smattering of whatever language I needed. Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, a bit of German to converse with the Prussians, Austrians, and Swedes. Usually I learned just enough of one language to pretend to be a native speaker of one of the others.”
    â€œI liked Quixote , especially during the wars.” She took the book out of his hands and let her finger run down its missing spine. He watched the movement jealously.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œQuixote believes in chivalry, in doing good deeds, in restoring justice to the