A Knight's Temptation by Catherine Kean Read Free Book Online

for her knife.
    Aldwin’s hand clamped around her wrist.
     

Chapter Three
     
     
    Veronique Desjardin pushed aside the linen sheets of the wide rope bed in Pryerston Keep’s solar. Restlessness plagued her, keeping her from falling asleep, but she didn’t resent the excitement bubbling inside her like a simmering cauldron. In truth, she welcomed it. For soon, the elements of her careful scheme would blend together in wondrous vengeance upon the man who’d spurned her years ago: Moydenshire’s lord, Geoffrey de Lanceau.
    As she left the warm bedding, causing the straw mattress to yield with a faint creak , the cool night air kissed her nakedness. She crossed the plank floor to the solar window and drew open the shutters. Night air swirled in, along with watery moonlight. Standing in its glow, she pushed her long hair back over her shoulders, then smoothed her hands over her chilled skin. In a slow, sensual caress, she ran her palms across her flat stomach, up over her ribs, and then to her breasts and taut nipples.
    A groan rumbled in her throat.
    Lord Ransley was a kind host, indeed, for giving up his bed to sleep with the servants.
    Laughter welled inside her. Ransley, kind? Nay, a drunken fool.
    From the first night she and Baron Sedgewick had arrived at the keep, uninvited guests, they’d slept in the solar, while he drank himself to sleep in the great hall.
    “She was so beautiful, my wife,” he’d blubbered yestereve while seated at the lord’s table, his eyes streaming tears. “A lady of such grace. Why, when she stepped into this hall”—he waved an unsteady hand—“all inside fell to a hush, without her saying one word.”
    “Imagine.” Veronique had patted his arm, taking care not to reveal her disgust over his filthy tunic. How simple it had been, while seated on an oak chair beside him, to lean sideways on the table. To cause their arms to brush. To bestow upon him a perfect view of her cleavage, straining against her scarlet-colored bodice.
    His gaze had riveted to her bosom—as she’d intended.
    His bushy eyebrows had snapped up before confusion and longing widened his gaze.
    Trailing her fingers down his sleeve in a lazy caress, she’d said, “Please. Go on.”
    “I . . . Um . . .” He’d shaken his mass of unruly gray hair and looked down at his wine goblet. “Ah . . .”
    Raising her hand from his sleeve, she’d picked up the wine jug, filled his goblet, and said in the gentlest tone, “I would like to hear more. ’Tis clear you miss your wife very much.”
    His hand shook when he lifted the drink to his lips and swallowed with noisy gulps. Setting the vessel down with an awkward clunk , he nodded. “I still cannot believe she is dead. Taken from me in a terrible accident I had never expected. I am lost without her.” He drew in a ragged breath. “I do not wish to bore you. A lovely woman like you”—his gaze fell again to her breasts—“must desire much more interesting pursuits.”
    Veronique laughed and poured yet more wine. “Not at all.” She squeezed his arm, lingering in the caress. “I am honored, milord, that you share your memories with me.”
    Ransley blinked, his lashes spiked with tears. Then anger glinted in his gaze before he shoved his goblet away, sloshing wine onto the stained tablecloth. “You mock me. You think I am a stupid old fool.”
    Caution had shrieked inside her. She’d sensed the distrustful stares of the servants nearby. If she wasn’t careful, her patiently woven snare would disintegrate in her hands. As much as she loathed Ransley’s pathetic display of grief, she needed his cooperation. For a while longer, at least.
    She held Ransley’s bloodshot stare. “I do not think you are foolish.”
    “Nay?” he grumbled, rubbing at the wine spreading across the tablecloth. “My daughter does.”
    “Daughter?” Veronique recalled the young woman who’d drawn Ransley aside and spoken with him in hushed tones the day she and Sedgewick had