Free Priceless by Christina Dodd Page B

breast, caressed it through the silk of her bodice, her eyes sprang open and she pushed at him.
    His face was too close: his eyes were unreadable, his heavy brows a single line across his forehead. His mouth was too close: an instrument of torture and enchantment. She could still taste him, savor the roughness of his perfect teeth. She could still inhale his breath, still tingle with the brush of his hand to her body, still bathe in the warmth of his flame.
    Reality arrived in a rush.
    She dragged air into her lungs and clamped her fingers around his wrist. “Let me go.”
    That man was smiling again, and never had she seen a charm to melt her resistance. He cupped her breast for one last moment, just to prove he could, and then dropped his hand. “Your eyes are shining.”
    More insistent, she said, “Let me go.”
    “Ye heard her, ye cad.” Lord Gaynor posed in the doorway, looking all the world like an outraged English aristocrat. “Let me daughter go!”
    Mortified, Bronwyn tried to stand, but her knees were crammed too tightly beneath the desk. She couldn’t move the chair back on the carpet. And Adam blocked her retreat. Not the genial Adam who’d been her companion this last half hour, but the austere lord who had frightened her before.
    Unperturbed, he queried, “Lord Gaynor, did you forget something?”
    Lord Gaynor strode forward. “Yes, I forgot to remove me daughter from your lascivious clutches.”
    Adam lolled back in his chair. “We’re to be married.”
    “Ye go beyond the bounds of what’s proper,” Lord Gaynor insisted.
    “Oh, come.” Adam dusted an imaginary mote from his sleeve. “Bronwyn can’t just say ‘How de do?’ on our wedding night, can she? It’s not decorous.”
    Bronwyn moaned as Adam repeated Lord Gaynor’s own words. The sweetheart who’d kissed and caressed her so delicately had heard every word out there on the veranda. He hadn’t kissed her out of desire or kindness or mutual pleasure. He was angry. Angry at her father for his clumsy attempt at matchmaking, angry at her for plotting against him.
    And she’d fallen into his revenge like the love-starved creature she was. Embarrassment, like a great wave, lifted her from her chair. She shoved it out from under the desk. When Adam reached out for her, her elbow struck his chest smartly. He fell back as she drew herself up. With her hand gripping her apron, she said, “Nothing happened, Da.”
    Lord Gaynor stopped his dramatic performance and became her concerned Irish father. “Don’t lie to your old da, me darlin’. That man was kissing ye.”
    “Not at all. I had something in my eye.” Stepping out from behind the desk, she swept past Lord Gaynor. At the door she turned. In her hands the apron ripped loose from the waistband as she glared at Adam. “But it turned out to be nothing.”
    Lord Gaynor stared at the spot where his daughter disappeared, then at Adam, who sat rubbing his chest. Like a hound on the scent, he thrust his head out and crept toward Adam, his gaze fixed on his future son-in-law’s face. He leaped forward, his hand outstretched to Adam’s lip. Adam flinched back, but too late. Lord Gaynor said, “Ah-ha!”
    “Ah-ha?” Adam drawled.
    Lord Gaynor turned over his hand, and there on his outstretched index finger was the heart-shaped patch Bronwyn wore above her mouth.

Chapter 5
    “My lord, London has gone mad.” Fresh from Change Alley, Northrup discarded his overcoat with a flourish.
    Adam closed his hand over the beauty patch, hiding it from view. Lord Gaynor had pressed it into his palm with an admonition not to move so quickly with his “darlin’ Bronwyn,” then swept from the study, the portrait of the offended parent. Except for the smirk on his handsome face.
    Adam wondered about the Irishman. He couldn’t help but like the spendthrift, yet why would he barter his daughter—his favorite daughter, it appeared—to a man whose family name was synonymous with corruption? Robert