Читать книгу A Dark and Brooding Gentleman - Margaret McPhee - Страница 2

Hunter waited until he heard the clunk of the brass candlestick being set down upon the wooden surface of the desk behind him, then he cocked the pistol and swivelled his chair round to face the intruder.

She was standing with her back to him, looking over his desk.

‘Miss Allardyce.’

She started round to face him, gave a small shriek, and stumbled back against the desk. Her mouth worked but no words sounded.

He rose to his feet.

Her gaze dropped to the pistol.

He made it safe and lowered it.

‘Mr Hunter,’ she said, and he could hear the shock in her voice and see it in every nuance of her face, of her body, and in the way she was gripping at the desk behind her. ‘I had no idea that you were in here.’

‘Evidently not.’ He let his gaze wander from the long thick auburn braid of hair that hung over her shoulder down across the bodice of the cotton nightdress which, though prim and plain and patched in places, did not quite hide the figure beneath. His gaze dropped lower to the little bare toes that peeped from beneath its hem, before lifting once more to those golden brown eyes. And something of the woman seemed to call to him, so that, just as when he had first looked at her upon the moor, an overwhelming desire surged through him.