Free Caroline and the Captain: A Regency Novella by Maggi Andersen Page A

enjoying the sensation of his thick, straight hair beneath her fingers. Strange, how she didn’t fear this man.
    “Mm. That feels good.” He closed his eyes and leaned back.
    Caroline moved around and studied his handsome face his hard thigh pressing against hers.
    She liked the way his nostrils flared like a thoroughbred horse when he was angry. She enjoyed his male smell and the woody fragrance of his soap, and found herself longing to bury her nose in his sun-kissed locks.
    He put a hand up and encircled her wrist. “You have a nice touch.”
    “My father gets headaches.” She swallowed, instinctively trying to back away.
    He swiveled and in a moment he’d pulled her into his lap and wrapped an arm around her waist. “You’re a cuddly armful, Lady Debenham.”
    She was shocked by the swiftness of his action and his hard body beneath her. He looked down at her, a gleam in his dark brown eyes. He was angry and grief stricken and probably not thinking clearly. A rash move now might put an end to the patience and decency he had afforded her to date. She didn’t want an argument which would make things awkward between them. Not now, when she knew him to be so low. When she wanted to work with him, not against him.
    “Let me go, Nicholas,” she said in a mild tone.
    “Why?” He bent his head his breath warm on her ear.
    “Because I don’t like it.” She fought for breath, having discovered the ridge of his erection pressing against her bottom. His strength made her aware of his power over her. It thrust her back to that day in the meadow. Her throat tightened and she feared she’d lose the rigid control she’d kept over herself.
    Nicholas traced a finger over her lips, restraining her but with such a light hold. “When the time comes, know that I’ll be gentle, sweetheart.”
    He bent to kiss her neck, his hand cupping a breast.
    Caroline stilled and her chest heaved beneath his fingers.
    He raised her chin with a forefinger and unhappy brown eyes looked into hers. “You’re afraid of me.” He tipped her out of his lap and went to stand by the fireplace resting a booted foot on the empty grate.
    Caroline bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Nicholas, I did warn you.”
    His brows met in a frown. “And I thought I made it clear that I have no intention of living this way.”
    “Yes, you did state it plainly. I hoped you might be reasonable.”
    He raked his hands through his hair. “Reasonable?”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “You’ve already said you’re sorry, blast it, Caroline. It doesn’t help.”
    She grasped her fingers. “No, I don’t suppose it does.”
    He came to sit beside her on the sofa, but didn’t move toward her. “You have to tell me what lies behind this fear.”
    His eyes had never turned hard when he looked at her. Not even now when she knew he was frustrated, hurt, and angry. She owed him the truth, especially now. She swallowed, her throat terribly dry.
    “I imagined myself a poetess when I was sixteen,” she said in a croaky voice. “I used to sneak away from the house to lie amongst the daisies in the meadow, inspired by the beauty of nature to write verse.”
    He watched her. “Go on.”
    “I didn’t see him until he’d come close. He’d seen me, apparently from a hillock on the boundary between Debenham land and ours.”
    Nicholas sat up with a frown. “Debenham land? For God’s sake, who?”
    “John Post. George’s estate manager.”
    “The man who cheated George out of thousands of pounds?”
    She nodded. Her head felt too heavy for her neck. “I tried to run, but Post jumped off his horse and grabbed me.” Her voice trembled and she swallowed to calm herself. “He pushed me down onto the grass and forced my gown up over my head. I thought I would suffocate, and then he...ravished me.” Her face burned with shame remembering Post’s cruel face, his body crushing her, the rancid smell of him, the pain and the rutting noise he made. “I thought he would kill me, but