Knight of Her Heart (Conquering the Heart) by Alyssa James Read Free Book Online Page B

against him in relief. She had achieved her goal. God be praised! This man’s seed now bathed her womb. Provided they were both fertile, she may even be impregnated by this first joining.
    She rested for a moment, listening to his laboured breathing, and did not move until she felt his rod begin to lose its strength. As she shifted and his member eased out of her, ’twas accompanied by a sticky wetness. Lisette had never been more grateful.
    Lord Collins would not claim her maidenhead. She had given away her virtue, and she had surely just given her soul to the devil, but in so doing she may have just saved not only her mortal life but Genevieve’s as well.
    Relief warred with remorse and guilt over the magnitude of her wrongdoing as the detachment she’d worked so hard to achieve, receded. There was no doubt her act had been sinful even if her motivation had been borne of desperation.
    Would the man lying beneath her forgive her if he knew he was her only chance?
    Self-reproach would not alter the crime she’d just committed. In time, God would punish her. Until her day of reckoning she must live with her conscience knowing that she had done what was necessary. Ultimately she would drive herself mad if she continued to dwell on her actions, and that would not be of benefit to Genevieve.
    The stranger would be well compensated for the moral crime she perpetrated against him. When they returned him to where they had found him, John and Frederick would leave him with food and silver coin which would be generous payment for the use of his body and robbing him of his seed.
    When she left this hut and faced those she had enlisted to help her, she would hold her head high and show no shame to them. If they knew how badly she felt they would insist that she abandon her plan. They would admonish themselves for not having been able to dissuade her from this path and she would not let her own guilt become theirs.
    “Thank you,” she whispered to the man.
    He gave a short, terse growl back.
    Carefully, she stood up. Still with her skirts pulled up, she made her way to the small basin and dampened a cloth to wipe away the stain of blood which marked her inner thighs.
    She’d cheated her guardian of his victory in witnessing her deflowering, although Ysabel had provided a solution to that so neither Lord Collins nor Lord Blake would ever guess the truth. In keeping with tradition, there would be a blood-stained sheet from her wedding bed to drape in Lord Collin’s great hall and none would be any the wiser.
    All was progressing exactly according to plan.
    So , she reflected, casting a glance over to the powerful male frame that lay unmoving on the hay bed, that was what mating was all about. It must definitely be more pleasurable for the male than it had been for her, for men to want to repeat it. The act had only left her strangely physically dissatisfied and sore.
    She moved toward the outstretched male figure and reached for a blanket to both warm him and cover his nakedness. Pausing in the act, she drank in his powerful thighs and snatched a glance at the masculine appendage that now lay dormant on its soft bed of hair. She prayed fervently that such a strong, masculine body would prove fertile.
    Her gaze drifted upward over the coarse woollen shirt covering his wide chest and shoulders and she wondered about him. Large hands. Strong forearms. What did he do? Judging from his dress, he was a peasant—probably a farmer rather than a blacksmith because his upper arms were very strong but not overly bulging like the village smithy.
    Did he have a family already? A wife and children who would be missing him?
    Forcibly she closed her mind on her curiosity as the thoughts made her throat clog once again with sadness. His identity mattered not to her mission. It mattered not if he had a family and they missed him, for he would return safely to them soon enough and he would be much richer. The only thing that mattered was whether