Free Just Once by Jill Marie Landis

empty stomach revolted. She had to get out. She whirled around and retrieved the musty wool cloak, still damp, and flung it around her shoulders. Drawing the hood up, she fastened the ties, reminded of the gold catch on the elegant velvet cloak she had traded for this ragbag piece. She could have used the ornate filigree ornament to buy her way out of this place.
    Her hand was on the bolt that secured the door from within when a powder flash of memory of last night’s sequence of events fell into place like dominoes. The Moreau letter, the dark-haired girl in the cathedral shadows, the heart-stopping terror of being accosted on the street, finding Hunter Boone. It had been so dramatic, so very thrilling—the stuff of Grandpa’s tales and her wildest daydreams. But now, with no more substance than imagination, the dream had vanished. She was alone in this foul, hellish back room of the devil’s own lair.
    Just as Jemma was about to throw the bolt and run for it, a quick, gentle tap sounded on the other side of the door. Hunter’s low whisper demanded that she open up. Now.
    Jemma unlocked the door and barely had time to clear the doorway before Hunter strode into the room. His arms were full of a bundle of coarse fabrics, all of them drab and definitely unattractive, along with his ever-present rifle. He tossed the clothes at her.
    “Take your clothes off.” He propped the weapon in the corner of the room.
    “I will do nothing of the sort. Where have you been? Do you realize I’ve been frantic with worry, thinking you had run off with my money with no intention of fulfilling your end of our bargain?”
    “I’m glad to see you, too.”
    “I didn’t think you would leave me in this … this sty … so long. I’m starving. What are you looking at?”
    “A madwoman, I think.”
    He crossed his arms and stood there, silent, waiting for her to undress. He filled the room with his very presence, all leather and fringe with the sun stamped bronze on his skin, the essence of the outdoors evident in his untamed hair and the moss-green emerald of his eyes.
    “I take it you want me to put these on,” she said, indicating the bundle in her arms.
    “You can’t go waltzing up the Trace in that ball gown you’re wearing.”
    Suddenly the ruined gown was important to her. It was a last, albeit soiled remnant of home. “This isn’t a ball gown. It’s—”
    “Torn and flimsy and won’t last a half a day more where we’re going. It’s cold up north.” Hunter reached out for her sleeve and rubbed the expensive fabric between his rough fingers. He glanced down at her slippered feet.
    “There are shoes wrapped up in the other things. Put them on, too.”
    Jemma clung to the bundle in her arms. Her chin went up a notch. “Step outside, please.”
    “Some of the drunks out there are beginning to stir. I’m staying right here.”
    “You actually intend to stand there while I change clothes?”
    “I suggest you get started.”
    Her face was afire. She had already compromised herself by spending the night unchaperoned with this man, but to actually disrobe and engage in so intimate an act as dressing was unthinkable.
    “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
    “Maybe you’re having second thoughts about this trip?”
    “Just because I won’t undress in front of you?”
    “We’re going to be in very close company for weeks. We’re going to be eating together, riding together. I’m going to know more about you than you know about yourself by the time we get to Sandy Shoals.”
    “
Weeks?
I didn’t know it would take that long. I—”
    “You can still change your mind.”
    He was watching her closely. All the doubt she had experienced during his absence shimmied to the forefront of her mind. It would be so simple to agree, to call it off.
    To miss the adventure.
    “No. I’ll not change my mind.”
    “Then you’ll have to get used to doing what I say, when I say it. Your life will depend on it.”
    “I doubt