For Your Arms Only by Linden, Caroline (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

“It must have been dreadful,” she whispered, feeling his involuntary flinch.

“It was,” he agreed flatly. “Everything about Waterloo was dreadful.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“There’s no reason to be. It’s done and over with.” Alec shook off the memory, sinking back into the soft seduction of her touch and interest. “Although I never dreamed it would so fascinate you.”

She smiled slowly—almost shyly. “You fascinate me.” She shifted, somehow inching nearer. “What else?”

“Bloodthirsty wench,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s the worst of it.”

“What about your back?” He blinked, and she slipped one arm over him to stroke his shoulder. Alec winced as her palm crossed the marks left by the splinters of an earl’s town coach blown apart by a powder keg. He’d almost forgotten about those scars, which somehow were even more disgusting to him. He was glad the marks of his spying were on his back, where he never had to see them even if he could still feel them.

Cressida snatched her hand away at his expression. “I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I shouldn’t have—”

“No.” He sat up and twisted to turn his back to her. Even in the weak early light, she saw dozens of tiny scars spattered over his broad back. Unlike the others, none of these looked lethal or dangerous, but there were so many of them…“In London,” he said, watching her over his shoulder. “Just several weeks ago.”

She gasped. “In London! But how—?”

“Spying is little better than the army, in that regard.” He put his hands on his thighs and shrugged. “I had supposed there was less chance of being blown up, but then I was caught in the middle of an assassination attempt, and nearly didn’t escape it. If not for another agent shouting a warning to me, I would have been standing right next to the powder keg when it exploded.”

“What happened?”

“I was assigned as a footman to an earl’s household. Some rabble wanted to kill him—and they nearly did so, not fifty yards from Carlton House.” She gaped at him. Alec smiled grimly. “So you see, perhaps you have not been sent the most successful agent. They ought to have sent Sinclair to help you. He unraveled the whole plot, and saved the earl’s daughter in the bargain.”

“But the earl?”

He shrugged again. “I dragged him down the street as far as I could and then fell on top of him when the keg exploded. There’s a bloody lot of wood in a coach; I thought it would never stop falling, and finally a bit of it caught me just right on the head. Or so they told me later. I seem to have a knack for getting in the way of anything dangerous.”

She rose up on her knees and put her arms around his shoulders before pressing a long, soft kiss at the back of his neck. “I’m glad they sent you,” she whispered. “I would have shot that Sinclair man on sight in my stable.”

Alec smiled. He shook his head. Then he broke into real laughter. “I doubt it. Harry’s a better-looking chap, and he’s got the devil’s own charm with ladies—although now that he’s to be married, I’m sure his wife will be very pleased you never had the chance to shoot him at all. But enough about my misadventures.” He twisted suddenly, and the next thing Cressida knew she was flat on her back with him looming over her. Her heart kicked hard against her ribs as his brilliant blue gaze moved over her. “Do you have any scars?”

“No,” she said. “I thought I did, here”—she touched her breast, right above her heart—“but it’s small and old.”

His absorbed gaze moved from where her hand lay to her face. “The navy lieutenant.”

“Yes.” Even now she felt a twinge of humiliation. “His name was Edward,” she said. “He was very dashing, and so charming. My sister had just married, and I was left much to my own devices. When he asked me to marry him…” She paused to gather herself. “Well, it was the first time a man paid me any attention and it went to my head. I was very foolish.”

Something in her voice must have given her away, for his expression grew still and dangerous. She forced a smile. “By the time he told me we couldn’t be married after all, I feared I was with child. Granny had warned us and warned us about girls who let gentlemen have their way, and there I was, about to disgrace myself and her.”

The muscles of his arms and shoulders flexed. Something changed in his face, subtly but ominously. “Any man who leaves a woman in that condition,” he said quietly, “should be shot.”

Her heart fluttered. “That is when I learned to use a pistol,” she told him. “But a week later, when I knew I was not expecting his child, I was glad he had gone. I was a fool, and I learned a hard lesson, but I didn’t have to pay for years and years…”

“Like your sister did,” he finished for her.

She gave a tiny nod. “Yes.”

He touched the spot above her heart, his hand sliding naturally around her breast as he stroked her skin, almost as if to rub away the hurt. Her breath caught. “I can’t feel the scar there at all anymore,” she murmured.

He smiled, a wolfish, predatory smile. “That’s the way of it, when they heal.” He molded his fingers to her flesh, pinching up her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and sending a ripple of shudders down her spine. “Has it healed?”

Cressida arched into his caress. “Yes,” she said breathlessly.

“Are you certain? Perhaps I should check.” He lowered his head, and her hands fisted in the sheets as he kissed her there, his breath hot on her skin. It’s healed, she thought as his mouth moved over her breast with tantalizing slowness. Completely, now that you’re here. She cupped her hands over his shoulders, holding