Free Angel in Scarlet by Jennifer Wilde Page A

Howard.”
    Those seductive gray eyes met mine again. Having provided the information he wanted, Eppie had ceased to exist. I found it difficult to control my breathing, for, defiant manner aside, I was really quite intimidated and amazed at my own cheek. I knew what he was up to, all right, knew what he wanted, and it frightened me. Glorious he might be, but he was still a man on the prowl, looking for a lay. He must be hard up indeed to pick on someone plain as me, I thought. Must be my bosom.
    â€œWell, Angie,” he purred, “I must say, I find you quite challenging. Did anyone ever tell you you have gorgeous brown hair?”
    â€œNot bloody likely!”
    â€œRich and thick and shiny as silk, it is. You’ve got a very provocative mouth as well.”
    â€œSave your breath,” I told him. “I’m not interested.”
    â€œNo?” He arched one brow.
    â€œNot in the least.”
    â€œI find that hard to believe.”
    â€œConceited, aren’t you? And superior and arrogant and—and a despoiler of innocent girls.”
    He smiled at that. Couldn’t blame him. It sounded like something out of one of the novels I’d read, but it was true nevertheless. Nothing a man like Clinton Meredith liked better than popping a cherry, and he wasn’t going to get anywhere near mine. He was handsome, sure, like a Prince out of a storybook, but that didn’t mean a thing to me. Neither did the fact he was a bleedin’ aristocrat. I was as good as he was any day of the week, I told myself, and I wasn’t about to cower and curtsy like most of ’em did when he deigned to notice ’em.
    â€œYou’re innocent, are you?” he crooned.
    â€œI know what’s what.”
    â€œI’ll bet you do at that.”
    He gazed at me, eyes amused, a smile curving on his full mouth, and I returned his gaze with cool hauteur, wishing my breasts weren’t so large, wishing they weren’t about to pop out of this old lavender dress I should have altered a long time ago. My bravado was about to give out and I was afraid I might start trembling, might let him see how uneasy I really was. Clinton Meredith continued to look at me, and I could feel the color tinting my cheeks despite all my efforts to prevent it. After what seemed an eternity he sat up straight in the saddle and thrust his feet more firmly into the stirrups.
    â€œSure you don’t want to play?” he inquired.
    â€œQuite sure,” I retorted.
    â€œDon’t know what you’re missing,” he said.
    â€œA case of the pox, probably.”
    â€œYou’ve got quite a mouth on you, Angie Howard. Don’t know that I’ve ever met a cheekier lass.”
    â€œGo sod yourself!”
    Eppie almost went into convulsions beside me. Clinton Meredith gave me a mock-polite nod, eyelids drooping, a half-smile playing on his mouth. He sat there in the sunshine on his powerful stallion, one of the Lords of the Earth amused by a saucy village brat who ordinarily would have been beneath his notice. I despised him, despised everything he stood for, and as those smoky gray eyes looked into mine he must have sensed what I felt. His manner changed. He frowned, a deep furrow above the bridge of his nose. Cold as ice he became, aloof and superior, but that couldn’t conceal his anger. Men like Clinton Meredith weren’t used to being bested by their inferiors. Didn’t sit well with him. Didn’t sit well at all.
    He looked at me for a long time, seething, and finally he pressed his lips together and jerked the reins and turned the horse around, riding off the way he had come. Eppie gripped my hand so tightly I thought my fingers would snap. She still wasn’t able to speak, wasn’t able to manage it until he was completely out of sight, and then she had to take a deep breath before she could control her voice.
    â€œI thought I was goin’ to die !” she