Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I offer a small smile which again feels inadequate. How I would love to remove all of her heartache and sorrow. I know I cannot. Ease it? The Duke is quite an irate man, and Sampson, I’m sure, jokes his way through his grief, but how does Taya deal with the loss? I sense, like her eldest brother, there is anger. A need to repel the ton. Break rules. I wince when I consider how disappointed her father would be with her now. Damn me, but I could not help myself. I have never been so charmed.
I slide out of her on a hiss, and I am at a loss without the feel of her warmth swathing me. ‘Come here,’ I order gently, rolling onto my back and inviting her in to my side. She comes with ease, and I smile to myself, closing my eyes and exhaling.
‘We will rest for a moment and then I shall see to it that you get home.’
‘All right,’ she replies sleepily, starting to caress my stomach, her strokes making me sleepier. ‘Frank?’
‘Yes, Taya?’
‘I quite like you.’
‘I quite like you too,’ I say, pulling her in further to me and blindly kissing her hair. ‘Probably a little too much, if you want the truth of it.’
‘What does that mean?’
I don’t answer her.
She knows.
Chapter 18
I wake up to a new day, and I am smiling. Yes, I am smiling, and it is quite a smile indeed, stretching from one side of my face to the other. I am very warm, too, warm and cosy, and I have absolutely no desire to rise and get on with my day.
‘Frank!’ I hear Mama shriek, the distance between us not at all lessening the piercing sound. I flinch. ‘Frank, where are you?’
‘Where the bloody hell do you think I could possibly be at this hour?’ I mumble to myself, even though I have no idea what hour it is. I shake my head to myself and start the challenging task of encouraging my muscles to wake up and sit me up, but with only one tiny move, something tickles my nose and I sneeze, jolting.
‘Oh my heavens,’ a small, sleepy voice says, making me freeze where I am, startled, my eyes dropping to my chest, where a mass of wild dark blonde hair greets me.
‘Oh no,’ I whisper, as Taya scrambles to sit up, her face awash with alarm as she faces me, the sheets pulled up over her torso.
‘I dozed off!’ she blurts, her eyes, despite the troubling situation, still managing to get a good look at my bare chest. I’m delighted, of course, but now is not the time to be egotistical.
‘Frank!’ Mama yells.
Now is definitely not the time.
Taya gasps, her attention turning to the door, beyond which the sound of my mother’s thumping footsteps are getting closer. There is nothing left for it. I seize Taya and shove her under the sheets, trying my damn hardest to position my body on its side so as to conceal the lump behind me, and I do it just in time for Mama to fly through the door like a bullet.
‘She’s gone!’ she says, her hands finding her face. ‘I have searched high and low, and she is not here, Frank!’
‘Who is not here?’ I ask.
‘Clara! She told Papa and me that she was leaving with you last night.’
‘What?’ I’m up out of my bed in a heartbeat, making my efforts to hide Taya a complete waste of my time. ‘She did …’ I fade off and my brain, which may be slightly sleepy at the moment but still functioning, thank goodness, stops me in the nick of time before I give Mama news that will surely excel her worry, for to confirm Clara was not with me yesterday evening will turn her into anxious wreck, and she is quite dramatic already. ‘I’m sure I can locate her, Mama,’ I say, approaching, frowning when Mama steps back. ‘You know our Clara, she is not happy unless she is up to no good.’
‘Where are your bed clothes, Francis Melrose?’ Mama asks, her eyes wide.
I look down to my naked form. Bugger it! Forgetting I’m supposed to be hiding someone, I reach back and seize the bedsheets, pulling them off the bed to cover myself. And in the process, of course, I reveal what is in my bed.
Taya yelps and grapples to win back the sheets. ‘Oh God,’ I blurt.
‘My goodness!’ Mama shrieks, swinging away from us to face the door. And then she is silent, and I suspect it is because she knows not what to say.
‘This is a problem of my own making, Mama.’
‘What ever happened to being reformed?’ she shrieks at the door, and thank God she is, because I fear if she were to see me rolling my eyes in this moment, she might well dress me down with some stern words. Taya Winters is what happened. I look over my shoulder to Taya, who has since found my shirt and slipped it on to cover herself. My God, she looks incredible there in my bed, all dishevelled and flushed. My mouth slowly curves.