Captain Ingram's Inheritance
Page 23
“No, truly, it is no more than a dull ache.”
“Then what’s wrong? What’s troubling you? If it’s Oxshott’s malevolence, you need not fear. His teeth are drawn.”
She shook her head helplessly. Despite her efforts, a sob escaped her and the tears flowed once more.
He dropped to his knees and gathered her into his arms, cradling her head on his shoulder, stroking her hair. “What is it? Tell me! Constantia, you must know I’d do anything in the world to make you happy.”
“But you saw my scar,” she whispered into his borrowed cravat.
She felt his sudden taut stillness. “Scar? You’re afraid that gash will cause a scar? If it does it will be very small,” he said in a strange voice.
“No, not that. The scar I already have, the long, ugly one. You must have seen it.”
“All I saw was a bleeding cut, a nasty graze, and a red swelling that I daresay will soon turn all colours of the rainbow.”
“Don’t laugh at me! Look!” She pulled out of his arms and struggled to open the clasp of her girdle. “Help me!”
“You look!”
He tore off his neckcloth and flung out of his coat and waistcoat, uncovering the buttons down the front of his shirt. Constantia reached forward and began to undo them with shaky fingers. As she came to the third, she glanced up. He was staring down at her with a peculiar expression on his face, desperate yearning--and fear.
For a moment their gazes locked, then she went on to the next button. He fumbled with the clasp on her dress, snapped it open, gently drew the gown down over her shoulders as she reached the last button of his shirt.
His chest was a map of pain, a network of chalk-white lines and plum-red blotches, ridged and hollowed. “Oh Frank, how dreadfully they hurt you!” she cried, and ran her fingertips across the worst of the terrible record of war.
And then he was crying, his tears damping her chemise as his lips traced the puckered slash from shoulder to breast. She held his head in both hands, not the romantic hero of her imaginings but a tortured man she loved so very much.
He pulled her close and his mouth descended on hers. A tingling flame ignited, flared, blazed through her.
The door opened with a crash.
“Connie, Mama says I am compromised and must marry Sir George, as though that were not exactly what I...” Vickie stopped short, her hand to her mouth as she took in the scene before her. “Gracious heavens, if I am compromised after spending two weeks in Sir George’s house with his mother and sisters, then you are utterly ruined, Connie! You will simply have to marry Captain Ingram. Oh, famous! Mama will be rid of all of us, at last. Let’s have a triple wedding.”
Frank’s eyes held a tender smile as they met Constantia’s. “That sounds like a splendid notion,” he said.
Copyright © 1994 by Carola Dunn
Originally published by Zebra (0821746650)
Electronically published in 2006 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
http://www.RegencyReads.com
Electronic sales: ebooks@regencyreads.com
This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title page
CAPTAIN INGRAM’S INHERITANCE
Carola Dunn
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18