Bride of the Beast by Sue-Ellen Welfonder Read Free Book Online Page A

then, clenching his hands against the unsettling notion he was about to make himself look a fool. "And I, Lady Caterine," he rushed on before his nerve took flight, "I would offer myself to you. Not as a pretend husband, but as a true one."
    She gasped. A tiny, breathy sound, barely audible above the wind. Not that she needed words to convey her revulsion. Her whole demeanor, her wide-eyed stare, screamed her displeasure louder than any winter gales that could race in from the sea.
    "No." The terse rejection ripped a deep chasm between the man he'd once been and his dreams of ever being that old self again.
    "And why not?" the sons of Beelzebub made him ask.
    To his astonishment, a tiny wry smile curved her lips. "Not for the reason you suspect, I assure you." She lifted her hand to his face, tracing his scar with a touch light as air.
    Marmaduke stiffened. No woman had ever touched his scars. Not the slashing one that marred his once-handsome face, nor the countless welts crisscrossing his back.
    No woman until now and the gentleness of that one fair touch near melted his heart.
    She withdrew her hand, a look of confusion flashing across her face as if she, too, had felt something. But the look passed so quickly it may never have been there at all.
    "Your scar does not bother me," she said, her bluntness taking him off guard. "I find your looks ... arresting," she added, surprising him even more.
    She drew a deep breath. "My situation has changed since Rhona took it upon herself to plead my sister's aid. It is indeed a true husband I now require, not simply a man willing to play the role," she said, her pronouncement sending hope thundering through Marmaduke.
    "But I cannot accept you as that man." The plain-spoken words dashed his newly revived spirits as thoroughly as if she'd plunged him over the rampart wall and into the sea.
    "Still, I wish you to know my feelings have naught to do with your face." She smoothed a fingertip along his scar once more, the gentle touch torturing him this time. "Nor is it anything you have said or done, not you personally. 'Tis your English blood alone. That, sir, is a taint I cannot overcome. My sister should have known better."
    For the first time in Marmaduke's life, words failed" him. Her frank avowal careened through him, mocking him and taking staunch sides with his demons.
    And stealing his ability to do aught but stare at her.
    "Lest I lose my courage," she plunged ahead, clearly unaware of the raw anguish twisting inside him, "I would beg one favor of you."
    "Name your desire and it shall be done." The chivalrous words came of their own volition, spoken as if by a stranger, though the voice was undeniably his.
    She peered at him, a profoundly earnest look in her deep blue eyes. "As my sister surely told you, Sir Hugh de la Hogue, who has been plaguing me for months, has vowed he will soon take me, and this holding, by force."
    "de la Hogue?" Marmaduke's gut clenched at the mere mention of the abased churl's name.
    "You know him?" The simple words seemed to etch worry lines onto her face.
    "I have met him, yes," Marmaduke admitted, the pulsing knot at his throat sending tendrils of heat into his shoulders and up his neck. "In the early years of my knighthood—at the
English Court
. A more debauched dastard never walked this earth, may the devil roast his hide."
    "He is the reason I must ask your help. Not so much for myself, but to protect James, my stepson," Caterine said, mentioning the young man Marmaduke had heard of but not yet seen.
    The heir to Dunlaidir.
    "Should Sir Hugh make good his threats, he would have done with James before the nuptial vows passed my lips. And with James dead, his two-thirds of Dunlaidir revert to me... to Sir Hugh if I am forced to wed him."
    And the black-hearted whoreson would have your life as quickly. Marmaduke kept his suspicions to himself, but from the look on Lady Caterine's face, she knew this danger without him giving voice to it.
    "You