Taming the Barbarian by Lois Greiman Read Free Book Online Page B

knew, felt in the very marrow of his bones.
    Thus he had learned what he could, asked questions where he dared. Subtle inquires about the lady. The answers had set his mind racing, and none more than from the besotted Lord Gardner.
    It seems she had married well. Lord Glendowne had been ” ‘andsome as a god and well-bred to boot, if a bit free with her funds,” or so said Shanks, the scrawny wainwright Killian had drunk with in a London pub.
    Further inquiries had suggested the young baron had been “a fine chap, ready to buy a bloke a pint when he was out and about,” which was a fair amount by all accounts.
    Everyone agreed with shaking heads and morose expressions that his death was a bloody shame.
    And yet Killian wondered whether the lady felt the same. If rumors were correct, it had been her coin that had bought the pints and financed the gambling. Might not a woman of her caliber resent such a thing?
    “Why do you bedevil me?” The lady’s back was as straight as an archer’s arrow, and her lips were pursed with disapproval.
    “Bedevil,” he repeated and though she was well covered this day, he could not help but remember how she had looked on the previous night, with her glorious hair unhidden and her breasts all but bare to his parched gaze. What kind of men would allow their women to traipse about half-unclothed? “Is that what ye lowlanders call it when another comes to your aid?”
    “Aid!” Her face was flushed pink from the tiny coil of her ears to the slim column of her neck. A few strawberry curls trickled out from beneath her silly hat and lay like pinkened gold against her ivory flesh. How soft would that flesh be beneath his fingertips, he wondered, and found that he was tempted almost beyond control to find out.
    The idea made him grit his teeth against his own foolish desires. He was here on borrowed time. That much he had ascertained, though little else.
    Her lips moved breathlessly for a moment, but when she finally spoke, she seemed to be in control once again. “Aid.” She nodded once, the movement sharp and crisp. “In the quagmire where you were conceived, is that what they call it when one tries to steal another’s land out from under her very—”
    He stepped up to her, close enough to feel the warmth of her body, to smell the intoxicating sweet pea scent that wafted like summer magic from her elegant form. “Nay, lass,” he said, ” ‘tis what I call it when I save ye from some sniveling coward intent on doin’ ye bodily harm.” He let his gaze rest on her heaving bosom, then slide slowly downward. She was built as fine and sleek as a prized mare. But a beautiful form did not necessarily speak of a good heart. That much he knew. Still, the temptation was as sharp as a spear. “Or mayhap men are free to do what they will with yer body.”
    Perhaps she had been angry before, but fire filled her eyes now, and her nostrils flared with rage. “You, Mr. Hiltsglen, are a bastard and a rogue,” she said, and turned away.
    He caught her arm, though he knew he should not. It had been a long age since he had felt a woman’s skin against his own, and his defenses were weak, his instincts thrumming like pounding hooves. “Are they?” he asked. And though he tried to imbue his tone with scalding criticism, he found that he half hoped he was right. That she was the sort to offer herself to a man in aching need if the price was right.
    But her teeth were gritted, her eyes narrowed to sparking green slits, and if he remembered correctly, women for hire tried to present a more congenial mien. “Release me,” she hissed, her voice low and angry.
    “Are ye offering yerself?” he asked instead, because, dammit, he was desperate.
    He would not have thought she could stand straighter, but she drew her shoulders back and turned toward him, as slow and regal as a conquering queen. Pulling her arm from his grasp, she pursed her lips and held his gaze with a lethal glare. “I do not, nor