Seducing the Rake (Mad, Bad and Dangerous Heroes) by Christina Skye Page B

against his neck. Her warm breath teased his bare skin. He felt an odd tightness in his throat.
    Her black hair fanned out. One strand slid over her shoulder and coiled against the crisp linen of his shirt.
    And at that moment Anthony Richard Langford, the Earl of Morland, knew desire such as he had never known nor even imagined before.
    Gut-wrenching, it was. Blinding. Unreasonable and unexplainable.
    And yet infinitely tender of its object.
    Not that he was in a position to do the slightest thing about assuaging that desire. Honor forbade taking advantage of a woman in such a state, and a servant at that.
    But, damn and blast, what was he to do with her until she awoke?
    Scowling, Morland studied her pale cheeks and the dark lashes fanning out against her skin.
    He saw the small, star-shaped scar atop her right wrist.
    Abruptly his breath caught. “Chessy?” he whispered in frozen disbelief. “Little Chessy Cameron? Good sweet heaven, when did you grow up on me?”
     

CHAPTER SIX
     

     
    Chessy came awake slowly.
    She was rocking gently. Something hard pressed against her ribs. Her head ached, and there was an odd rasp in her throat.
    Warily she opened her eyes, fighting dizziness and exhaustion.
    Above her the sky danced a mad waltz. She blinked up at the sooty clouds flying overhead. Abruptly a storm of tiny white flakes rained down around her.
    Funny, she hadn’t expected snow. It never snowed in Macao. In fact, Chessy had only seen the icy powder once before, while in China.
    One of the flakes landed on her mouth. She tasted it with her tongue, frowning when it didn’t melt. They were supposed to melt , weren’t they?
    Her brow wrinkled. It must be far colder than she thought.
    Something brushed the white flakes away. They hung in the air for a moment, then drifted slowly to the ground.
    “Sorry about the hawthorn petals.”
    Petals?
    She tried to sit up, but the movement sent fresh pain hammering into her head. She hadn’t slept and had barely eaten in the last week. Her energy was seriously depleted.
    “Stop struggling. I’m carrying you inside. I don’t expect you’d enjoy being dropped on the stairs.”
    Only then did Chessy notice the male arm clamped around her waist and the hard chest and stomach that pressed close.
    Her head flew back. She stared up into a pair of startling azure eyes. “ You! ”
    “I,” Morland said slowly. “Apparently the last person you were hoping to see. Perhaps someday you’ll tell me why, Chessy.”
    The woman in his arms squirmed against his chest, color flooding her cheeks. “L-let me go, you cabbagehead! I can walk perfectly well. Now put me d-down, or I’ll—”
    But the long legs did not slow their pace. She found herself rocking up the rickety staircase at the rear of the house.
    Around her the world lurched back into focus. She heard the cries of street vendors, the shouts and clatter of a passing wagon. She grew aware of the pain at her wrist and ribs, where she had hurt herself in her perilous climb the night before. She was dizzy and tired and nauseated.
    But most of all she felt the fascinating warmth of Anthony Morland’s arm at her waist, the pressure of his taut thigh beneath her hip.
    Like it or not, there was something damnably comforting about all that controlled animal strength.
    Abruptly reason and realization returned. Chessy could have cried out with the instant, slashing torment of it.
    Not Macao at all. Not even Asia. She was in London, and her father was still a captive. She had yet to find the book that would free him.
    Chessy struggled to move, but hard fingers clamped around her waist and held her motionless against taut male muscles that rippled with every step.
    “Don’t move, I said. We’re almost there.” Sky-blue eyes probed hers, keen in a darkly tanned face. “And then I believe you owe me some explanations, Miss Cameron.”
    The Earl of Morland’s voice was low, but Chessy could hear the anger in it. The sound ignited her