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Page 44

| "You wouldn't!" Sasha gasped. |

| "Sweet darlin', it's a crime to hide such a body beneath such garb as you're wearing today," Ashton said, reaching to touch her face. |

| Sasha tensed and stepped away from him, and his hand dropped awkwardly to his side. She could see the passion in his eyes. She had heard the need in his voice. |

| Oh, but Lord, it matched her own! |

| But since their one wild embrace, she had avoided letting it happen again. |

| Slipping away from him, Sasha took one last look around the drab room, but not because she was going to miss it. The bed was leaning precariously sideways, the mattress flat and hard. There was only one chair, a table on which sat a washbasin and a pitcher of water. The window was bare of curtains. |

| A dark shade hung at the window, tattered and torn; wallpaper was peeling from the walls, plaster crumbling from beneath it. A trunk sat empty at the foot of the bed, the silken and satin clothes that had once filled it sold long ago. She had placed her few cotton frocks, which were more appropriate for the life that she was heading for, in her valise. |

| "Sasha, are you ready to go?" Ashton asked, breaking through her thoughts. "Are you ready to seek our fortune in the thriving wool trade?" |

| She turned to him and smiled wanly. "I am if you are," she murmured. "I don't think I'm going to miss this place one bit." She moved to him and peered up at him. "Ashton, are you sure we're doing the right thing? At least, running the pub, you knew from one day to the next where the next meal was |

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