AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He was standing very close. She hadn’t moved away very far after she’d fallen against him while attempting to retrieve her manuscript. Tumbling against his chest had been like falling into a massive oak tree that had suddenly pushed through the floor of the library, spreading its branches and knocking books from shelves.
He occupied so much space, filling the library with his presence, making her life seem tame and lacking in kisses.
All summer long she’d watched him outside her window and here he was within arm’s reach, pulsing with life and confidence. There was such freedom in his movements. She thought so carefully about her every move, her every utterance, and he just did as he pleased.
If she abandoned that carefulness, if she were Amaranthine, a feisty, headstrong heroine, she might pound her fists against his chest in a fit of pique until he had no choice but to capture her in the steel band of his arms and kiss her breathless.
Would she remove her spectacles first? Probably prudent. They might get in the way.
It would be a glorious kiss. A kiss worthy of her favorite novels.
His lips against her lips. A sunrise in her body.
Golden warmth spreading from where their lips met, suffusing her body, pooling behind her knees and in her belly, and... lower.
A kiss he’d remember when he was sailing at sea, far from land. He’d recline alone in his narrow berth and remember the moment when her lips sought his. When she taught him how transporting a kiss from a bookish wallflower could be . . .
“Lady Beatrice?” His voice broke the spell.
She crashed back into the pragmatic, nonwhimsical body she normally inhabited to find one truth confirmed without a shadow of a doubt: she, Lady Beatrice Bentley, was a prize-winning ninny.
One who indulged in fictitious kisses with handsome, arrogant rogues.
“Oh, so you do know my name,” she said tartly. She was upsot; she must return everything to rights.
“Are you feeling quite right? You stood there staring for quite some time. I was beginning to think that the etymologist had run out of words.”
“Never better, Wright. And I never have an insufficiency of words, thank you very much.” She walked briskly to the bookshelves and began ordering books with no regard to alphabetical or subject order.
He knew that she’d been thinking about kissing him.Of course he knew. She’d been staring at his lips. What had come over her?
“There’s much work to be done before I depart for London.” She grabbed a cloth and started dusting the shelves. “I must put this library to rights, decide which books to bring with me, gather my papers. I won’t have much time for writing dictionaries in London. It will be balls and operas and musicales. Oh, how I detest musicales.”
She was gabbling nonsense.
“Lady Beatrice . . .” His voice rumbled, shaking her to the core.
Don’t turn around. Don’t stare into his eyes.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Quite. Now if you’ll excuse me...”
He didn’t leave.
She plucked a book from the shelf at random and gave it to him, keeping her gaze on his large hands, rather than his sensual lips. “Here’s something to read on your next voyage, Wright. I hope it may expand your vocabulary.”
He tucked the novel under his arm. “I’ll be going then.”
Yes, Lord. Let him leave.
“Will you inform me if you hear anything from your brother?”
“I promise that I will. Good day, Wright. I do hope you’ll take the stairs this time.”
“Now where would be the fun in that?” He bestowed one last disarming grin on her before disappearing over the windowsill, descending back to his adoring kitchen maid.
She rested against the solid bookshelf, the smell of parchment and ink surrounding her in a familiar and comforting embrace.
