Destitute On His Doorstep by Helen Dickson

you think there is too much laughter in the world, too many people intent on enjoying themselves, no matter what the cost to their immortal souls.’
    Francis became still and Jane’s breath caught as he stepped nearer.
    All his senses completely involved with her, Francis felt an overwhelming desire to take her arms and shake some sense into her, or to drag her into his own. Her soft ripe curves beckoned him, made his body starved of a woman for too long ache with the want of her. Her loveliness quickened his very soul, stirring his mind with imaginings of what loveliness lay hidden from view beneath her provocative red dress. It was a long time since he had felt this need in him to feel the warmth of a woman, to sweep her up in his arms and ease the lust in his loins. Were he to do so, he could well imagine Miss Lucas’s outrage.
    A lazy smile crept across his face and Jane’s heart skipped a beat. Francis Russell had a smile that could melt a glacier. All she was conscious of was a sense of complication and confusion. Everything had suddenlychanged. His powerful, animal-like masculinity was an assault on her senses. Moistening her lips, she could almost feel her body offer itself to this man, this Roundhead, this stranger—and yet he wasn’t a stranger, not to her, and in that instant they both acknowledged the forbidden flame ignited between them.
    Francis drew a ragged breath, wishing he could understand why she seemed so familiar to him. By an extreme effort of will he replied casually, ‘I am a man of the Civil War. That does not make me a Puritan who would tell you to cover yourself and say that your appearance is unseemly in the eyes of the Lord—that your breasts are as wantonly exposed as your brazen, flaunting hair.’
    The warmly mellow tones of Colonel Russell’s voice were imbued with a rich quality that seemed to vibrate through Jane’s womanly being. To her amazement, the sound evoked a strangely pleasurable disturbance in areas far too private for an untried virgin even to consider. As evocative as the sensations were, she didn’t quite know what to make of them. She glanced up at him, cheeks aflame.
    â€˜Then since you are not a Puritan, Colonel Russell, you would not say those things?’ He shook his head. ‘So my state of dress, immodest as it is, would not trouble you?’
    â€˜Not in the slightest, but for your own safety you would do well to heed my words.’
    â€˜Oh, I shall, sir, but I will continue to wear what I please. Nothing you may say or do will persuade me to discard this dress. And you cannot force me to do so.’
    â€˜Can I not?’ He looked at her with that faint amusement that she was already learning to detest. It was the same look that he might give to a bad-tempered, obstinate child. An amused look, but quelling. ‘I believe that you know better than that, and since my method of persuasion might be construed as rough, it might be as well, while you reside on this estate, to do exactly as you are told.’
    Jane was tempted to tell him that she would reside anywhere but near him, but seeing Mary standing in the doorway, she considered it wise to hold her tongue. Never had she felt so wretched or confused. Later she would break down and weep, but at that moment she was caught in an icy world from which she could not escape.
    â€˜The steward’s house is habitable. I’ll instruct the housekeeper to have some food sent over and some linen.’
    His eyelids lowered, masking the expression in his eyes. A muscle pumped along his jaw and Jane felt herself dismissed in a way that she thought was disconcertingly regal—for a Parliamentary man.
    â€˜Excuse me. I would like to go and have a word with Mary.’
    Her head throbbing, Jane began to cross the hall when suddenly nausea rose in her throat and she stumbled, finding it difficult to breathe. Placing the back of her hand to her forehead as her