Linda Needham by The Bride Bed Read Free Book Online Page A

purpose to do whatever I please with your wardship, madam.
    Damn the man! Talia took the dozen steps from her chamber down to the solar, gave the door a single rap with her knuckles, then shoved it open with her shoulder, prepared to stand her ground.
    But not in the least prepared for the dazzling sight of de Monteneau, standing tall and entirely naked beside a bathtub, his arms raised with a towel against his long, dark hair.
    His eyes clear and piercing her through.
    The broad, darkness of his chest.
    The sleek, shadowy arrow that led to the trim of his waist.
    And his hips.
    And the rest. All of it—not at rest.
    Startling, dark. So…weighty-looking. Lovely and begging the touch of her hands.
    “May I help you, madam?”
    She swallowed. Gulped. She really ought to look him in the face, but there would be trouble there.
    Besides, this was just a stolen glimpse. An irreproducible miracle.
    No, this was out-and-out staring.
    “Help me? No. I mean, yes…my lord.” Still staring. And he is still magnificent. She purposely bit the end of her tongue, and the flinching pain flicked her gaze upward. Found his eyes, and focused there. “I mean, that is…”
    “Yes, madam?”
    Oh, oh, what a stunning wedding night that would have been. With him. The weight of him, his scent. His low, silken voice stealing across her skin.
    A foolish, girlish thought.
    But the only thought she could conjure, beyond something about a wedding…A night with him. Ah, yes.
    “I don’t care what you say, my lord guardian, I will not marry you.”
    The man had the gall to smile. At least it looked like a smile. A glint of white hinting at his amusement, at her expense, though he stood so completely, so utterly naked, his towel at his side, without a care toward her staring or her opinion.
    Bronze and big, so exquisitely big. That shadowed mystery at the joining of his thighs stirring on its own, as though something lived there apart from the man himself.
    A breathtaking sight that she could get very, very used to seeing if she ever had the misfortune to have to marry him.
    If.
    “Then, my lady, you’d best not enter my chamber again without knocking first.”
    Look away, Talia!
    “I…I knocked loudly enough!” She finally found the sense to turn away from him and all that self-assured maleness, to study her mother’s tapestry, to idly straighten it. The ripening orchards and the alabaster tower, the rearing unicorn and its silky, jutting horn.
    “Aye, and then, madam, you entered without my permission. I advise against the practice.”
    “Is that a threat, my lord?” Holy Mother, she was baiting him and stealing sideways glances at him through her lashes.
    “Consider it fair warning.”
    Not fair in the least, but she would heed it from now on. “Speaking of warnings, my lord, that’s exactly the reason I came.”
    De Monteneau’s stride was measured as he approached, making her turn toward him in self-defense as he tucked away the end of the towel, now wrapped carelessly around his hips.
    Precariously.
    “You burst into my room in the middle of my bath, in the middle of the night, to forbid me to marry you?”
    “No. That’s not the reason I came.” He was just a few steps from her, an enormous, quizzical bear, studying his supper. “But, yes, actually. You can’t. Ever.”
    “Can’t marry you?” He raked his fingers through his hair, shedding light little drops on her face and across her neck, like sharing a spring shower.
    “That’s absolutely right, my lord. You can’t marry me.”
    “Ah, but my dear Lady Talia,” he said deliberately and so nearby, she could feel the heat pouring off his bare chest, his arms, seeping through her kirtle. His steamy kind of spice. “I can .”
    “But you won’t, my lord. I forbid it.”
    He laughed softly and from deep in his chest, narrowed his dark eyes, sending a thrilling glint through the slits. “Just like the rents on your lands and your knight’s fees, my lady, I am free