Betrothed by Lori Snow Read Free Book Online Page A

her knees
and tugged off the blindfold, smearing her tears down her ashen cheeks.
    He
walked over to a pile of coarse woolen garments and tossed them to the girl.
“Get dressed and then get out of here.”
    “Yes,
milord.” She nodded though hiccupping sobs and complied with amazing speed --
considering the number of times her fingers fumbled over the task. She kept
backing towards the door as she dressed but Donovan still caught a clear
glimpse of several welt marks on her back. Opting to finish the job on the
other side of the door, she bowed out, carrying her slippers and stockings.
“Thank you, milord.”
    Donovan
waved the maid away and closed the door after her. Slowly, he turned to
confront the witch. “And you must be Syllba, the Lady d’Olivet.”
    With
only a gold net to restrain her golden curls, Syllba was as naked as her
captive had been. She made no move to cover her body. She stood, and
straightened under his scrutiny and stretched her tall slender body taut. With
her shoulders back, she thrust her small breasts Donovan’s way. Her skin was
pearlescent white, but she appeared quite healthy. Her flesh was firm and gave
no hint of the softness one might expect from being stretched from several
pregnancies -- not matter how short the term. Not too helpless to complete her
duties as chatelaine.
     “You
should be thrashed.” On a dim level, Donovan was aware of the irony of his words.
He had come to prevent just such an action from her lord husband.
    Her
dark gold brows rose over ice blue eyes. “Why?  What have I done that is
so evil?  I make myself available for my husband’s needs. I accept his
seed into my body, and I have welcomed no other man into my bed or into my
cunt. What are you going to do?  Tell my husband?  He knows that he
will never have cause to question any babes I present to him. I will birth no
bastards.”
    “You
belong in Pomeroy. The monks are renowned for their willingness to beat the
devil out of madness—and women. The church condemns your behavior. Hell-fires
will keep you warm for eternity.”
    The
woman’s full-bodied laugh shook her breasts and pinkened her cheeks. “You would
condemn me for having the same appetites as you wife?  Surely, you had
some tender feeling for your beleaguered bride?  Would you sentence her to
the fires of hell as well?  Even after she did her best to endure your
hungers?  To give you an heir?”
    “Liar!”
Donovan raged against the poisonous implication. “You dare to speak such filth
of the Countess of Bennington.”
    Syllba’s
only response was a sly laugh, this time sending a revolted shiver down his
back.
    At
another time he might have ignored the insult, the defamation, but the need to
defend Marta became overwhelming. He could do this for her memory—for their
son. “My wife had the tender sensibilities of the finest bloodlines. To share
the bed of one not her husband would have been abhorrent to her. To commit such
acts as you?  To defile all of the church’s teaching?  She would
never…”
    “Ah,”
Syllba interrupted with a pitying shake of her blonde head. “My lord, your
countess enjoyed a woman’s bed. She reveled in the shared passions of women. We
spent countless hours playing with each other’s bodies. Many a time she sang
out her pleasures as I brought her to the peak of ecstasy.”
    “No!”
    “And
then, in return, still trembling from her excitement, she would put her
hands—her mouth—on my body and work me to raptures.” Syllba threw out her chin,
her eyes narrowed in memories. Her empty hand stroked her throat, trailed down
between her naked breasts and squeezed her peaked nipple.
    “Stop.
You must have bewitched her into such depravity!”
    “Marta
was not only an apt pupil in the arts but so, so eager. Why, she was willing to
travel two grueling days to share my bed.”
    “I
don’t believe you.” He took a forbidding step forward but the madwoman seemed
not to fear him. She only lowered her