Page 19 of The Pirate's Stolen Bride
“Perhaps the mice have spared us a crumb.” He nudged aside a clump of dead weeds, sending a tiny field mouse bounding across the floor. Raindrops dripped through holes in the ceiling. One landed on Harriet’s nose. Still, one drop was better than hundreds of them.
“Is there any way to make a fire?” she asked. The building’s foundation was constructed of odd-shaped stones held together with crumbling mortar. One section against the short wall rose higher than the rest, with an open fire pit and a rusted iron bar cemented over it. The chimney rising above it formed a spine supporting thick beams and a more or less intact section of roof.
“We can repurpose this.” He wrenched a piece of dry wood away from what had once been a shutter. It came away with a groan. He pulled off more slats and stacked them in the fireplace.
Harriet knelt and twisted to peer up the chimney. No daylight, however wan, shone through the opening. Nor did any rain appear to have fallen through the chimney. The cap had long since blown away, which meant there was likely something blocking it.
Summoning her courage, she chose the longest stick in Rémy’s growing pile and began poking it upward. Dirt rained down.
“Allow me.” He shrugged out of his coat and rolled up one sleeve. Harriet found herself transfixed by his muscular forearm. Tanned skin dusted with fine sun-kissed hairs. Until now, she hadn’t realized that men’s hands could be strong. Aboard theSpectre, she’d been too angry with him to notice anything beyond the broad outlines: his face, his shoulders.
Last night, while he slept, she’d had a chance to look closely and see the finer details. His long lashes. The sweep of his brows. The sharp indentation at the base of his throat.
Now, she couldn’t stop noticing them.
“You are staring, Miss Turner.”
She whirled away.
“Watching,” she insisted with a flutter in her stomach and a pulse that galloped like a frightened horse. “I wasn’t staring.”
She should have better sense than to fall for her own kidnapper. It was embarrassing. Where was her sense of dignity?
Rémy set aside the stick. She heard the scrape of wood on stone and his footfalls on the dry ground. Outside, thunder rolled.
“It’s fine. You can look. I don’t mind.”
The click of a flint and steel striker finally prompted her to turn. He’d coiled a handful of dry grass in the center of the tinder, and within a few expert motions, was blowing the sparks into a flame. She removed the sodden vest and her spencer and spread them on the rocks near the fire to dry.
There was that enticing dip between his clavicles and the long column of his throat. Raising her gaze to his chin made her bring her hand up unconsciously in a wild impulse to run her fingertips along the rough hairs along his jaw. He’d had no time to shave this morning.
He caught her hand and pressed it to his cheek, turning into it. Harriet’s breath caught.
“Why did you follow me?” he asked, his voice rough.
“I didn’t want to be left alone.” She couldn’t stop staring at his lips.
“The real reason, Harriet.”
She swallowed.
“Tell me and I’ll kiss you.”
She shouldn’t speak the words. All her life, she had lived in the shadow of her mother’s mistake. She had paid the penalty for her illegitimacy despite having no control over the circumstances of her birth.
Now, despite her uncle’s careful planning, she had no control over her own fate, except in this regard. She could choose Rémy and all the excitement and chaos that came with him. The man didn’t know the concept of rules.
“I wanted to stay with you,” she whispered.
Those lips curved into a smile that sent her heart soaring. If he didn’t kiss her right now, she was going to collapse from sheer want.
He stroked her jaw with the pad of one thumb. She could imagine the feel of that touch everywhere on her body, trailing fire, igniting desires she had long tried to pretend didn’t exist.
Shewasn’tlike her mother. She refused to be. But perhaps she was more of her mother’s daughter than she ever wanted to believe. A woman consumed with carnal curiosity, unable to resist the lure of a wholly inappropriate man.
“Do you know why I took you?” His warm breath ghosted across her cheek. Her eyes fluttered closed.
“Why?”
