“Mmm.” Lacy sighed. “‘Tis good to have ye home, darlin’. I hate sleepin’ alone.” She stood on tiptoe and ran the tip of her tongue along his bottom lip. “Even old ladies have yearnings of the flesh, ye know.”
“Lacy Bennett,” he said huskily. “You’re not old. You’ve not changed a day since I first laid eyes on you, stepping up into that Newgate gallows cart.”
She laughed and her heartbeat quickened. “Liar,” she accused. He still made her feel like a lovesick girl. She guessed he always would. “But ye can tell such lies to me as long as we live.”
James ran his fingers provocatively around the back of her neck, and she pressed against him. “What did ye bring our Bess?” she asked.
“I’m thinking the child had a good idea,” he said. “It’s hot, and I’m all sweaty from the ride. What if the two of us go for a dip?”
Lacy slid her hands up under his shirt and stroked his bare chest. “Did ye find her a gentle mount? One that won’t toss her into a hedgerow?”
“I bought that piebald pony off of John Ridgeway, the one his little boy always rode to church. Young Jack’s outgrown it; it’s hardly bigger than a mastiff and John says it’s got the disposition of a lamb. John’s having his groom bring the pony over tonight. Now.” He kissed her again. “Will you swim with me, Mistress Bennett, or shall I ask another lady?”
She chuckled. “I remember what happened the last time I went swimmin’ with ye, sir. That fisherman spied us, and we were the scandal of the Eastern Shore for weeks.”
“And you mean to let that stop you?”
“Hell, no.” She threw her arms around his neck. “I’d swim naked with you in the Thames, Jamie, and that’s God’s truth.”
Laughing, he mounted the horse and pulled her up behind him. He turned the animal’s head toward a secluded cove on the river, and Lacy put her arms around James’s waist and hugged him tightly as he kicked the gelding into a canter.
And as they rode away from the graveyard, she glanced back and saw a familiar figure standing in the shadows. Ye promised him to me, Kutii, she whispered inwardly. Ye said ye would, and ye kept your word. Then she closed her eyes as happiness swelled up inside her and bubbled over.
“I love ye, James,” she said.
“And well ye should,” he teased, lifting her hand to his lips for a kiss. “For it’s not every Cornwall wench who finds a fortune and gets to marry a prince.”
“Nor every maid who would want to,” she retorted. And their bright laughter mingled and floated back on the warm August air to bless the green fields of a dream come true.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
FORTUNE’S MISTRESS is an original publication of Avon Books. This work has never before appeared in book form. This work is a novel. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
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Copyright © 1993 by Judith E. French
Inside cover author photograph by Theis Photography, Ltd. Published by arrangement with the author
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-90540
ISBN: 978-1-6018-3093-7
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