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"Right," he said icily, "and although you are aware of my remark about the queen of Scotland, you aren't aware that while you were escaping, I was telling Graverley, like a besotted fool, that I intended to marry you. And you aren't aware that you were leaving for a cloister immediately after our wedding at Merrick? Which would have neatly bound me to you for life at the same time it deprived me of heirs? And if you lie to me just one more time-" He took the goblet of wine from her and jerked her into his arms.
"You were doing what?" she whispered.
"Enough of this nonsense," he said shortly, bending his head and taking her lips in a hard, silencing kiss. To his surprise, she didn't fight him, In fact, she seemed not to know what he was doing to her. When he lifted his head she was staring at him with an expression in her blue eyes he'd not seen before.
"You were doing what?" she breathed again.
"You heard me," he said shortly.
An awful, treacherous warmth was seeping through every pore of Je
"I was insane at the time," he said coldly.
"About me?" she whispered, so carried away with what her heart was telling her that she spoke without thinking.
"About your delectable body," he said crudely, but somewhere in her heart, Je
"I didn't know," she said simply. "I never imagined you would want to marry me."
"And I suppose if you had, you'd have sent your stepbrother off and stayed at Hardin with me?" he jeered.
It was the greatest risk Je
Trying without complete success to ignore the tender i
"I was not going to any cloister, I was leaving with you in the morn," she said simply. "I would never have done anything so… so low."
In sheer frustration at her endless deceit, Royce jerked her into his arms and kissed her, but instead of fighting the hard, punishing kiss, she leaned up on her toes and welcomed it, her hands sliding up his chest and twining around his neck. Her parted lips clung to his, moving tenderly, softly against his mouth, and to Royce's astonishment he realized she was gentling him. And even when he realized it, he couldn't stop it from happening. His hands no longer dug into her arms, they were shifting over her back in a restless, soothing caress, sliding up her nape and holding her lips closer to his hungry mouth.
And as his passion built, so did the awful, guilty premonition that he had been wrong. About everything. Tearing his mouth from hers, he held her clasped tightly to him, waiting for his breathing to even out. When he could finally trust himself to speak, he moved her slightly away and reached down to lift her chin, needing-wanting-to see into her eyes when he asked her. "Look at me, Je
The eyes she raised to his were i
"There was no plot," she said simply.
Royce leaned his head back and he closed his eyes, trying to shut out the obvious truth: After forcing her to stand in her own home and endure the barbs of his people, he had dragged her out of bed, forced her to marry him, hauled her across England, and to finish it all off nicely, he had, within the hour, graciously offered to "forgive" her and "let bygones be bygones."
Faced with the choice of shattering her illusions about her father or letting her go on thinking he was a callous madman, Royce chose the former. He was not in a mood to be gallant-not at the expense of his marriage.
Stroking her silken hair, he tipped his chin down and stared into those trusting eyes, wondering why he consistently lost his reason where she was concerned. "Je
She nodded, but the smile she gave him told him she thought he was fanciful beyond belief.
"When I went to Merrick keep, I fully expected either your father or one of the clans to try to violate the pact that guaranteed my safety while in Scotland for our marriage. I put men on the roads leading to Merrick and left them with orders not to let any group pass without making inquiries."
"And they didn't find anyone trying to violate the pact," she said with quiet assurance.
"No," Royce admitted. "But what they did discover was a caravan of one abbess with an escort of twelve, making what seemed to be undue haste toward Merrick. Contrary to what you have reason to believe," he added with a wry smile, "my men and I are not in the habit of harassing clerics. On the other hand, following my instructions, they made inquiries of the party-by the expedient measure of letting the abbess believe they were there to give her escort. She, in turn, happily confided that she was coming for you."
Je
"The abbess and her party had been delayed by all the rain in the north-which was, by the by, why your father and your 'pious' Friar Benedict dreamt up that nonsensical explanation about the good friar being very temporarily too ill to perform the ceremony. According to the abbess, it seemed that one Lady Je
"Your father had hit upon the perfect revenge: since our marriage had already been consummated before the fact, an a
"I-I don't believe you," Je
"He would, and he intended to."
She shook her head, shook it so hard and so emphatically that Royce suddenly realized she couldn't bear to believe it. "My father… loves me. He wouldn't do that. Not even to avenge himself on you."
Royce winced, feeling like the Barbarian he'd been called for trying to shatter her illusions. "You're quite right. I-it was a mistake."
She nodded. "A mistake." She smiled at him, a soft, sweet smile that made his heart pick up its tempo because it was not like any other smile she'd given him. It was filled with trust and approval and something else he couldn't quite identify.
Turning, Je