Protecting The Princess - Nadine Millard Page 0,49

was heaving.

But she’d done it!

This time, she’d really done it alone. With no help from Jacob, or Christopher, or Alex, or anybody.

It had been ungainly and undignified. But ultimately successful.

Now, to get her feet on solid ground.

The process was long and arduous.

Her cloak and hair snagged in twig after twig. Her skirts caught and she winced as she heard more than one tearing sound.

And her hands, she knew, were covered in scrapes and scratches.

But finally, after an age, Harriet got to the lowest branch and with one steadying breath, she jumped and landed with only a whispered “oomph” onto the blessedly sturdy ground below.

Harriet bent forward, clasping her knees and dragging some much-needed oxygen into her burning lungs.

She glanced up at the tree, hardly daring to believe that she’d managed to get down it. That she was free.

She straightened up, pulling the hood of the cloak over her head and preparing to run across the grounds.

Suddenly, a hand clamped around her mouth, another dragged her back against a large, rock solid body.

Her attempts to scream froze and died in her throat as a familiar voice whispered furiously in her ear, the breath tickling her neck and sending gooseflesh all over her body.

“I swear,” the voice growled. “If I ever catch you jumping out of windows and climbing down trees again, I will lock you in a tower, so help me God.”

The hand from her mouth dropped to her shoulder, spinning her around to face Jacob’s furious glare.

“What—”

Before she could speak another word, he pulled her close and bent his head, capturing her mouth in a ferocious kiss, and sending her thoughts skittering on the wind.

He hadn’t meant to kiss her.

Of course, he hadn’t.

This was neither the time nor the place.

Yet when he’d spied her, hanging from a bloody window, Jacob had never felt fear like it.

He’d been all set to get inside the house, get Harriet, and get out within thirty minutes. Maybe an hour, allowing for any potential run-ins with Tallenburg’s guards.

Yet he’d stood at the base of that tree, unable to do anything other than watch in sickening apprehension, for eons.

When she’d lost her grip on the damned window frame, he’d felt his legs give way and only sheer force of will had kept him upright, his eyes fixed on the beautiful, brave, insane woman scrambling for purchase on the bloody tree.

Jacob had prayed, cursed, barely breathed, and almost cast up his accounts as he watched helplessly from the ground.

The relief he’d felt when she’d reached the base had made him so light-headed, the world had actually spun for a moment before his anger, swift and fiery, had refocused his mind.

Pulling her against him, he’d only intended to make her aware of his presence, to blister her ears for her folly, to assure himself that she was safe and real and in his arms.

But the scent of her had teased his nostrils, and the feel of her soft, delectable curves, even through the voluminous cloak, had reminded him of all those days they’d spent together. It had been like an oasis in a desert to a man dying of thirst.

And so, trembling with the remnants of fear as well as the desperate need that only she could evoke, he’d turned her in his arms and drunk his fill.

And now, instead of getting her to safety, he was kissing the living daylights out of her on enemy territory.

The stark reminder that she was still in danger dragged Jacob’s mind from the gutter in which it had planted itself and back firmly on the task at hand.

Pulling his lips from hers, he gazed down into her face, awaiting the moment that she’d open those eyes and he’d fall into them all over again.

He studied her face for any signs of injury or distress. But, he thought rather smugly, she looked nothing other than beautiful and thoroughly kissed.

Jacob allowed himself a moment of unadulterated male pride as he took in the blush on her satiny smooth cheeks that was visible even in the moonlight.

Her eyes fluttered, the lashes batting open.

He expected wonder. Awe. Desire, certainly. Maybe even a tear for the romance of it all.

But as he gazed into the deep brown pools of her eyes, they narrowed menacingly and he got the distinct impression that he was in trouble.

“Harriet,” he whispered.

He didn’t get to finish whatever it was he was going to stay.

Without warning, her boot-clad foot came down hard on the tip of his Hessian, causing him to curse