A Perfect Knight For Love by Jackie Ivie Read Free Book Online Page A

bairn.”
    “Sounds and looks more like she worries over your lusts. And perhaps . . . their nearness to the bairn’s birth.”
    Thayne swallowed. Amalie felt the motion. “That, too,” he finally replied.
    “Well! Doona’ let me stop you.”
    “All in good time, Dunn-Fyne. The wife’s barely left the birth-bed. As you just brought out.”
    Dunn-Fyne chuckled. He was still laughing as he moved away, taking his snide words with him as well as the shuffling noises of his men. Amalie shut her eyes.
    “You believe me now?” Thayne whispered.
    She nodded.
    “You’ll keep quiet?”
    She nodded again.
    He sent a breath across her nose and released her mouth. Then he moved his head to continue his whispering, this time at her ear. More than his head moved. It felt like shoulders, chest, belly, groin, and legs all undulated along and atop her.
    “He kens the truth about us. You hear me? And what he does na’ ken, he suspects!”
    She waited, listening to every single heartbeat as they raced through her ears, revealing her fright. Waited some more.
    “The man is na’ stup’t. He kens the wee bairn is his, as well.”
    “Why doesn’t he do anything about it, then?”
    “Why should he? Think, lass. He’s got me hooked, netted, and fileted. He’s fain satisfied with the turn of events. Can you na’ see it?”
    “You’re heavy,” Amalie told him.
    Thayne pulled in a huge breath, if the amount of weight pushing against her was any indication. And then he let it out. Loudly and with a large sigh sound. He lifted his upper body onto his elbows to regard her with unblinking earnest aqua-shaded eyes. Amalie felt her heart flutter slightly before she could prevent it. She could only hope he didn’t note it.
    “We move, we do it together. As one. In reach of one another. You ken?”
    Amalie waited a moment before nodding.
    “You cleave exactly to me. Always. ’Tis the lone safe place. And the lone place to keep everything else safe as well! Including Mary’s bairn. You ken that, too?”
    Amalie puzzled that before shaking her head.
    “I’ve noted how he looks at you. If he gets close enough, he’ll grab you. And then he’ll ravish you, and then—! Are you still a maid?”
    She put every bit of anger that question deserved in the look she gave him. It worked. He understood the answer.
    “I’ll remedy it as soon as I dare.”
    “What?” The word squealed.
    “Softly, lass! Soft! Jesu’!”
    He continued with more whispered curse words, shifting his body with the intensity of it and putting weight atop her that had a crushing value to it. About the only thing he wasn’t doing was holding her mouth.
    “Can you na’ listen through anything afore reacting?”
    “You’re . . . too . . . heavy,” she managed to reply. He lifted onto his elbows again, and this time, he even shifted his hips to one side of her.
    “We’ll try again. Pray, listen fully this time. Dunn-Fyne’s a wife-beating, heartless son-of-a-banshee. He’s na’ above taking another man’s wife. ’Twould be a fitting revenge against me. If he so chooses.”
    “Revenge?”
    “For the stealing of his wife. He’d consider taking you a just and fair act. And righteous. He’d probably rape you in full sight of all. Brutally. You saw how he treated Mary?”
    Amalie choked, held the scorch of reaction until she had it under control and breathed with the slightest cough accompanying it. It still burned every bit of her chest. He took it for an answer.
    “This is the Highlands, lass. Up here, if a man canna’ hold what’s his, he’s nae right to claim it in the first place.”
    “You-you’d allow it?”
    “How am I to stop him?”
    “But—”
    “Doona’ fret. There’d be nae allowance. I’d die fighting. ’Tis better.”
    “Better?”
    “Dunn-Fyne finds your maiden wall, he’ll put light on our lie . . . and then I’m a dead man. As are the others about us. Except . . . perhaps you. But you’d most like be wishing for