Forbidden (2 page)

If she had any hope of taking on all
that so she could continue to raise her little Ava in the home
they’d both grown up in, she’d do well to remember that.

She dipped a small curtsy in Jeremy’s
direction and bowed her head in acknowledgement of the
slip.

“Thank you Jeremy. Have the footman
ready a stable for the horses and tell the upstairs maids to
prepare a room in case our guest needs to stay the night as it’s
getting on quite late in the evening and they may not make it back
home by nightfall. Also, inform Cookie to prepare a bit more than
usual tonight for the same reason. If whoever it is doesn’t stay
then the servants may have what remains and one more clean room in
the house won’t kill us.”

Bowing, Jeremy flashed a quick grin and
left to do as she’d asked. She should really reprimand him for his
familiarity, but honestly that small sign of approval made her feel
better.

As if … as if maybe they’d be alright
without papa around.

Palming away the tears that suddenly
sprang into her eyes, she gathered her skirts in one hand and moved
towards the window overlooking the drive in front of the
house.

She could just make out the carriage
lumbering its heavy way down the drive beneath the cloaking canopy
of trees. They were about five minutes off which gave her enough
time to compose herself enough to drum up a wilted parody of a
smile.

Unsatisfied with how fake it felt, she
tried it again, and then again.

Practice made perfect after
all.

* * * *

Damon was tired, he was irritated, and
most of all he stank of the road: an odd mix of horse, dirt, and
sweat. He been traveling hard since he’d read John’s letter a week
and a half before. After he’d seen who it was from he’d been
reluctant to read the contents. Something about the letter made his
blood run cold without his even having to open it.

It had taken him a good two days to
prepare his steward and staff for his extended absence. He’d never
been gone longer than a few days, but in honor of John … in honor
of him he would stay until the elder man passed on to receive his
just rewards.

He owed him that much.

So it was with mixed feelings that he
stepped from the carriage to look up at the two story plantation
home. The curtains in each of the windows on the first and second
floor fluttered and shook as curious servants looked out at the
newcomer.

Damon fought back a smile.

He wouldn’t have been surprised if
they’d known of his arrival much sooner. He had made quite a stir
buying the most expensive carriage and horses available. But he
couldn’t help himself, by the time he and Bella had dragged their
way into town they’d both been exhausted. He was adamant about
having her rest for the duration. He would be taking the carriage
when he went back to Georgia so that both he and Bell could rest.
They deserved it.

His suspicion about the staff being pre
warned of his arrival was confirmed when a young boy hurried
forward and bowing announced that he would take the horses to the
stable to be fed and watered down.

Shrugging and rolling his shoulders to
relieve the tension in his back and neck, Damon made his way up the
wide stone steps to the front door. It opened before his knuckles
could make contact with the wood.

And there standing before him was the
most … enchanting creature he’d ever laid eyes upon.

“You’re him.” Her voice was flat and a
bit hoarse, as if she were fighting back some strong
emotion.

Damon cocked his head to one side and
stared at her hard and long, ignoring the knowledge that he was
being rude.

For some reason he didn’t like the
faint sense of recollection that shook him.

It was in the eyes really, those bright
green eyes and that strong jaw. But recognition or not, he wanted
to erase the anxious shadows darkening her gaze and the fine
trembling in her lower lip.

So he smiled, crooked and cynical
around the edges and raised an eyebrow.

“Him who?”

She began to nod her head, her eyes
steady as she looked him up and down. Then she saw the dimple and
that simply confirmed it.

“It has to be you. I mean you have to
be him. It’s the only explanation. You’re just like how I remember.
Just like it.” She was muttering to herself, and wanting to erase
the sick pallor of her face, he rested a hand against the doorframe
and leaned in until he was all too close for his state of
mind.

“For you Princess, I can be anyone you
want me to be.”

His blatant impropriety seemed to shake
her out of her daze. She stepped back with a regal lift of her chin
as if she’d suddenly realized that he was far beneath her
notice.

“I apologize, sir.” She said, her voice
cool. “But we both seemed to be under some misguided impression of
each other. I am no street trollop and you obviously aren’t the man
I thought you to be. Now would you be so kind as to state your
business and leave, my home is in mourning and we would like some
peace and quiet.”

Damon couldn’t help but grin down into
that perfect little face. She was taller than most women, and he
liked how she met his gaze head on and the way her warm, honey
scented breath teased his nostrils. It took his spiraling mind a
moment to grasp what she just said and when it finally dawned on
him, he felt it like a punch in the guts.

Only this time the feeling had nothing
to do with the lust the strange woman awoke in him and everything
to do with guilt.

“Mourning?”

“Yes.” She was wary of him if the
narrowed green eyes were any indication. “My father passed away
last week and I--Good heavens, are you alright?”

Her hands reached for his face. Sick
with himself, with his own stupidity and insensitivity, Damon
stepped out of her reach, seamlessly turning the evasion into a
formal bow so that she wouldn’t regret her show of
concern.

“My apologies.” His voice sounded
ragged. Damned if his throat wasn’t tight. It didn’t matter how
hard he and Bella had ridden, because they had been too late a long
time ago.

Much too long.

Raising his head, he met the young
woman’s eyes, wondering despairingly if she were Ava or Jocelyn,
and guessing if those pretty green eyes were any indicator then she
was obviously the latter.

“I don’t mean to intrude during this
time of grief, but my name is Damon Burleigh.”

He shrugged and gave a self deprecating
smile. “I’m here to see an old friend.”

* * * *

“England!”

“What?” Ava glared at him, her pretty
mouth pursed and blue eyes blazing with evident dislike. “Why would
daddy want you to take us anywhere?”

There was a lot of venom in those few
words, a lot of distrust and hurt. Damon understood it, forgave it,
and just as quickly, dismissed it.

The girl was suffering and clinging to
the familiar.

There was no shame in that, hell; he
did the exact same thing most days.

So he made an effort to keep himself
calm. “John sent me a letter asking me if I’d take you girls to
your Uncle.”

Lord Clayton Holbrooke, Earl of
Stanford had been the one to buy John’s commission into the East
India Company. He was a serious man, and liked to keep to himself.
Completely unlike the younger Holbrooke brother who loved crowds
and noise, which is probably why he prospered after the birth of
his two girls where other men would have buckled under the strain.
Especially since it hadn’t even been a week after Ava had been born
that his wife consumed to fever and died.

They had still been overseas then,
still fighting, and it wasn’t until Ava was four and Jocelyn six
that the war had finally ended and they’d been allowed home. During
this time John’s brother and his wife Kristen had been caring for
the girls and as soon as he got back on English soil he packed them
up and Damon followed behind the small family to America. Once
there he used the money he’d inherited from his father to buy a
small plantation down in Georgia while John and the girls claimed
his late wife’s childhood home in Virginia.

For that first year or so after they’d
come back, he’d stayed with John a lot, traveling tirelessly
between Georgia and Virginia every other month it seemed like.
Learning the finer points of how to run a plantation and
integrating his own experiences with it from when he’d helped his
father run their estate in Bengal.

For a year he’d watched Ava and Jocelyn
grow, Ava who was just as delicate and pale a child as she was a
young woman. Even at four she’d been a smart little thing, knowing
how and when to smile and the exact angle in which to turn her head
to inflict the most damage to the male heart. By the time her fifth
birthday had begun to roll around she’d had most of the staff
wrapped around her chubby little finger. Men and women alike were
under her thrall, for though the women recognized her tactics and
tricks, she was pronounced as being even smarter and twice as
adorable for knowing how to implement them in the first
place.

A twisted sort of logic, but there it
was.

Jocelyn on the other hand … she’d been
solemn but bright. Quick to laugh and slow to cry. She’d been
enchanting, and just as he’d been hopelessly drawn to her back then
he found himself even worse off now. After he’d lost his little
brothers and sister, children had held little appeal to him. They
were too easily broken, too easily crushed and snuffed out like the
bright dancing flames they were. Once you fell in love with a child
they kept your heart and he couldn’t have taken it if another one
had died on him. So while Ava had been the queen of the castle in
most respects it had been the shy little Jocelyn who’d sought him
out to run her chubby hands over his face whenever he’d found
himself lost too deeply in memory.

She had something in her that could
save him and it was that growing attachment to her that had sent
him running and convinced him not to come back.

Even now, he found his eyes drawn to
her, only this time it wasn’t with the eyes of an infatuated young
man, but with the desire akin to that of a moth to the
flame.

She was curvy, her lush figure at odds
with her seemingly stern demeanor. The lashes that framed her green
eyes were thick and brushed across cheeks as smooth as silk
whenever she turned her gaze from him. The lamps set up in the room
brightened it enough that he could make out the golden highlights
in her dark blond hair.

He wanted to touch her, taste her, lick
her, bite her, and the urges disgusted as well as thrilled him to
the bone.

He was shameless, lusting after her
when he’d been entrusted with her safety.

But just because he knew he was
shameless, didn’t mean he could stop himself, and if he wasn’t
careful he would find himself covering the distance between them to
snatch her up.

Good thing for them both she did all
she could to keep their eye contact to a minimum.

Though Damon suspected this had a lot
to do with her personal dislike of him rather than any maidenly
urges to protect her virtue.

“We’re not going anywhere with you. Let
alone to England. Ava and I are perfectly fine staying right where
we are.”

“How will you take care of
yourselves?”

“The plantation of course.”

“So I’m to assume that you’re aware of
all the ins and outs of pulling off something like
that.”

“I’ve watched daddy do it for years.
And what I don’t know I can learn--”

“And while you’re learning, this entire
estate will collapse and your father’s hard work along with
it.”

“That’s none of your
concern.”

“John made it my concern.”

“And the solution to all of this is to
take us across the sea to the enemy? You seem to be forgetting that
we’re in the middle of a war, Mr. Burleigh. If you pardon me for
saying so that seems none too bright.”

Damon felt his lips tightening and a
nasty mix of blood and blankly staring eyes danced in his
head.

“Well excuse me as well, Princess,” he
began, tone mocking and gaze fierce as it met hers, “but two women
living alone in a warzone doesn’t seem all that smart
either.”

She deemed him worthy enough to sneer
at then, and he ignored the shot of lust to sneer right
back.

Maybe he’d been spending too much time
farming and not enough whoring if this little girl was wreaking
such havoc on him.

“I think we’ve said about all we have
to say to each other, Mister Burleigh. Now if you’d be kind enough
to leave, the servants will be happy to--”

“Hold on there, sweetheart. We haven’t
said nearly enough to each other. John asked me for a favor, his
last wish if you will, and I’m going to make sure I do it for him
whether you girls agree to it or not.”

Since he’d just made kidnapping an
option, Damon felt tons better about the entire mess. Even
Jocelyn’s slowly flushing cheeks were enough to bring a smile to
his face. He was startled when Ava cleared her throat, and he
turned to her with hooded eyes. He was more than a little ashamed
to realize that he’d completely forgotten about her and in a
belated attempt to make it up to her he gave her his undivided
attention.