Free AWAKENING THE SHY MISS by Bronwyn Scott

selfish reasons ,his conscience warned. It would be too easy to convince himself he did this for purely objective reasons—this would be a working dinner, nothing more. That wasn’t quite true. He did want to learn about her cataloguing system. But he also wasn’t ready to let her go for the day. Perhaps he was merely lonely. In that case, anyone’s company would do. He could ride into town and drink a pint at the tavern or drop in on Andrew. No, to be honest, it was Evie’s company he wanted and he was willing to use the cataloguing system as an excuse to help himself to her company. She wouldn’t come otherwise.
    ‘We could go over the system in my tent. I’ll send for dinner. This way we won’t be interrupted. During the day there are a hundred things demanding my attention all at once. I’d never be able to digest a cataloguing system with all the distractions.’ He had to stop talking. He was rationalising too much. She’d think he had other motives and maybe he did if he was honest with himself. He wanted to spend some time with her. He saw her hesitate. At least she hadn’t refused him out of hand. In this case, hesitation was good. She was considering it.
    He offered her a persuasive smile. ‘You’re not worried for your reputation, are you?’ he teased. ‘We’re discussing how to catalogue artefacts with a veritable herd of assistants around, hardly the best circumstances for ravishing.’
    She smiled, revealing a hidden dimple along with the inner daredevil; the woman who would risk dinner alone with a man in his exotic tent. ‘Well, when you put it like that, how can a girl refuse?’

Chapter Seven
    S he should have refused. One step into the pavilion and she knew this had been a mistake. Now, here she was about to eat dinner with a prince, in his pavilion, alone, no matter how he tried to argue to the contrary. His team was across the site, eating at long wooden trestle tables. They would come back and retire to their own tents within shouting distance of an alarm, but no one would actually be inside the Prince’s pavilion with them. Not that one person would be all that noticeable.
    The pavilion was enormous, as luxurious, as decadent as any eastern sultan’s. Her original idea that the Prince was camping on site was definitely erroneous. No one ‘camped’ like this. There were no deprivations here. The long dining table, with elegantly curved legs complete with matching chairs for twelve, running through the centre of the pavilion, dispelled any notion of deprivation. Just in case it didn’t, the chandelier of Venetian glass hanging overhead did. Every inch of the pavilion was furnished expensively. One corner housed an active workspace with a polished walnut desk and a matching glass-fronted bookcase that rivalled any gentleman’s study in England. Those things might draw the eye, but it was the heavy damask curtain, partially drawn back with thick gold rope partitioning off the pavilion and the curved Venetian divan set in front of it, draped in silk throws and rich-hued pillows, that held Evie’s attention.
    ‘The fabrics are magnificent...’ Evie breathed, unaware she’d moved towards them until her fingers brushed the silken surfaces. Lovely . They felt like rose petals beneath her touch. She fingered the damask of the curtain, noting the quality of the weft. ‘Italian?’
    ‘Yes, I had the curtain done in Florence several years ago. The silks are from China.’ Her mind was interested in the answer, but her gaze was already drifting beyond the damask, catching a peek of a sleigh bed heaped with silk and pillows.
    She could hardly drag her eyes away from that tantalising glimpse of bed. Worse, he caught her staring. ‘My private quarters,’ he answered her wandering gaze and Evie flushed.
    The Prince came up behind her. She could feel the heat of his body at her back, making her entirely aware of him. His private quarters. Yet another reminder of how foolish she’d been to