Read Through The Leaded Glass for Free Online Page B

finger. “You’re right. I couldn’t understand you.
You should wear that at all times.”
    She sighed. “Quite a turnaround from ‘mine,
all mine.’”
    His lips tightened. “Then you should be
pleased since you wanted it so badly. And now you’ll have it. As
well as the rest of the Shelton jewels.”
    Kate thought about strangulation, but tossed
the idea aside. She was pretty sure murdering a peer of the realm
incurred the death penalty these days. “How can you marry me? You
didn’t even know I existed until an hour ago.”
    The fact that she hadn’t existed here
an hour ago was beside the point.
    “ Actually, I did know. I just
didn’t believe it.”
    “ Oh, right. The gypsy. So what did
this seer-of-all have to say about me?”
    “ That you would have what I’d
lost.”
    “ And from that you get I’d have
your ring?”
    “ But you do.”
    “ That’s beside the point. Do you
really believe in fortune-tellers, and soothsayers, and
witches?”
    Alex crossed himself. “We don’t speak of
witches.”
    Oh. Right. They probably burned them at the
stake in this century.
    Kate ran a shaky hand over her forehead.
“Look, I get that you’re doing what you think you should do, but,
trust me, it’s not. What we should do is find my window and
send me home.”
    “ I’m afraid we can’t do that, Kate.
I need you.”
    Those words wouldn’t be bad to hear from the
other side of a bar. Or in her bed. But most of all, in the
twenty-first century. Not here. Not now .
    “ Alex, you don’t even know
me.”
    “ A fact which shall be remedied
within the hour. Nick and Tristan will find out all I need to
know.”
    “ Good luck with that.” It’d be
amusing if it weren’t so, well, not. “Look, my... my lord.”
She tried out the phrase then decided that—medieval mores
aside—there was no way she was going to subjugate herself by
calling someone her anything, let alone lord . “I appreciate
the honor, but I’m not marrying you. I shouldn’t even be here.” She
twisted the ring.
    “ Why not?” He sounded genuinely
surprised. Of course, the guy was an earl. Probably not used to
women turning down his marriage proposals, impassioned or
otherwise.
    “ You’d never believe me if I told
you.”
    “ Humor me because it will take
quite the story to convince me. You don’t fully comprehend the
power of Lady Aubridge’s rumors.”
    She opted not to go for the whole enchilada
with the time travel thing. Witches and all… “I need to get home to
my daughter.”
    His smile faltered. “A child? You have a
husband?”
    Yeah, sure, why not? That’d put an end to his
marriage plans. “Yes. I do.”
    He arched an eyebrow, which was an entirely
too sexy look on him. “Inventive, Kate. And precisely what the
gypsy said you’d say. She also said that it’s not true. You don’t
wear a ring.”
    That’s because she’d rubbed her skin raw to
remove the reminder that she once had.
    Alex brought her hand to his lips. “One other
than mine, that is.” He kissed it.
    Chivalry was alive and well and sexy as hell
in the fifteenth century—and became a full-on inferno when he
turned her hand over to kiss her palm.
    She shivered as his touch sent fire licking
over her nerve endings, and she wanted to sink into that massive
chest and have him wrap his arms around her and lose herself in the
feel and scent and taste and touch of him—
    Oh Lord, she was in trouble. She could not want this. Forget that it—he—was a complication she
didn’t need; she was stuck in the fifteenth century and had to get
home. She had a life, a child, a job.
    But then he slid his fingers into her hair and
tugged her lips to his and the next thing she knew, he was kissing
her. Or she was kissing him. Someone was kissing someone and, oh,
boy, she suddenly no longer cared what century she was
in.
    He cupped her cheek, his thumb teasing the
corner of her mouth, curling delicious tendrils of want through
her. She gasped. She wanted this, if