Read Jo Beverley - [Malloren] for Free Online

Samuel in a field of fertile ewes.
    It wasn’t funny, though. She had to work out what to do. Should she dress provocatively? Would she have to be naked? Should she touch him first? Kiss him first?
    Oh, she did wish Diana was here. Though unmarried, Diana met a lot more men and flirted with most of them. She’d even mentioned books on intimate matters. She’d surely know how to encourage a male. Whatever it took, however, Rosamunde was going to do it.
    Even if she had to go up to Arradale and raid the library for those mysterious books!
    Fear.
    He lay still in the darkness, a bitter memory of enemies hovering over him.
    Silence.
    A foul taste.
    Vomit.
    ’Struth! Embarrassing memory flooded back. He’d cast up his accounts in front of a woman.
    Had she been real?
    Tentatively, he reached out and found he was alone. Thank heavens. He’d dreamed it.
    But the taste was still there, and the memory of a calm, pleasing voice was devilishly clear.
    The touch of a breeze made him turn his head. His much less painful head. In the dark, curtains stirred, giving glimpses of a slightly lighter outside. Someone had opened the window to freshen the air.
    So, who was she, and where was he?
    Clearly in the country. The air and quiet told him that.
    The woman had named the place, but that too eluded. Gill-something? Gillshaw?
    He burned with a need for the security of knowledge. Despite comfort and tranquility, he lay tense with fear, under a haunting sense of danger in the shadows.
    Was it real?
    He didn’t know.
    Just as he still didn’t know who he was. That seemed ridiculous, so he pushed and poked at his mind, demanding his identity.
    He stirred only dreamlike memories, but snatched at them greedily.
    Riding a country lane on a sweet summer’s day.
    When?
    An old stone house with ivy-covered walls.
    Where?
    Birds singing in the trees. A blue coat spoiled by a brush against wet paint.
    Had he cared?
    Swaying in a good, solid coach, applying himself to paperwork. He paused on that. It showed a hardworking, conscientious fellow, and that felt true. Not this drunkard in a whore’s bed….
    Silver plate on a laden table, glowing in candlelight….
    He sucked in deep breaths, forcing himself to break off the frantic struggle to weave these scraps into whole cloth. He knew with eerie certainty that they weren’t connected.
    Who was he?
    What was his
name
, dammit?
    The veils parted and his name popped out like an impish child saying, “Were you looking for me?”
    Brand Malloren.
    He groaned with exquisite relief.
    He was Brand Malloren. The knowledge settled in his mind, carrying dancing ribbons of detail. He was Brand Malloren, third son of the Marquess of Rothgar. The old marquess. His oldest brother held the title now.
    That rich dinner had been his last meal at Malloren House in London before heading north. As the ribbons wove into a complete story, he grasped each detail, desperate for more of himself.
    He could see the dining room as clearly as if he were sitting in it. Silver dishes of excellent food, all bathed in warm candlelight though, itbeing summer, fading sunlight lightened the room as well. His oldest brother the marquess sat at the head of the table, Cyn and Cyn’s wife, Chastity, at either side, Elf opposite. That was the “elf” he’d thought of before. His sister Elfled. Cyn not “sin,” Bryght, not “bright”—Arcenbryght, his other brother.
    How long ago had that been? Had Bryght’s wife had her child? Had all gone well? She was a small woman for childbearing….
    He struggled to remember something else, but everything between that pleasant meal and this dark, mysterious room lay blank, as if it had never existed.
    But he remembered talking at that dinner about a trip north.
    Was he now in the north? He thought he remembered a touch of it in the woman’s voice, though she’d spoken like a lady. So, he was likely in Yorkshire or Northumberland. But where? And who was his nurse? And what the devil had