The Demon's Bride by Jo Beverley Read Free Book Online

I will use my claws,” she said, and began to dig her nails into his skin.
    He didn’t flinch. Instead, smiling, he tightened his grip on her hair, meeting her eyes without flinching. Rachel held his gaze, digging her nails harder, though she was struggling not to cry out from the pain on her scalp.
    He changed, suddenly looking very like the youth in the portrait. He released all the tension in his hand, but didn’t remove it. Rather, it seemed now to caress her skull. “You are, as I said, magnificent. I will marry you.”
    “Not without my consent.”
    “Not even after bloodying me?”
    Rachel released her claw-grip on his wrist. A horrified glance showed dark nail marks, one of which oozed blood.
    “You’ll consent,” he said softly, “just as you’ll consent to this.”
    He pulled her slowly toward him and she went, recognizing that their battle had roused her passions and that he knew it. He seemed to know her better than she knew herself. She would never have thought that Rachel Proudfoot even had such passions.
    His lips brushed softly over hers, arousing in her a brutal desire to be kissed with violence.
    What kind of a woman was she?
    A woman who wanted more, despite the sound of conversation so close by.
     
     
    Without satisfying the need he’d stirred, he released her and turned her to face the portrait, his hands resting on her shoulders. “So, what did you make of the third earl’s insane ramblings?”
    Rachel closed her eyes in despair. She’d been vanquished by one of far greater experience and skill. But at least she’d managed not to follow her true desire and impose a violent kiss upon him. Trying to be grateful to be spared, she told him of their deductions about Meggie’s death.
    “So, my ancestor seduced the maid, and for that her family killed her, disguising the murder by throwing the body into the flames?”
    “It’s the better explanation.” The shadowy corners of the room were creating entirely the wrong atmosphere for this discussion.
    “What other is there?”
    Rachel could not speak the words.
    He turned her to face him. LM” ‘SNOPtruth. Is my practical Miss Proudfoot truly envisioning human immolation? Little Meggie Brewstock with her throat cut on an altar, thrown onto the fire to appease the angry god? What god? Of course.” He dropped his voice to an eerie level. “Waldborg, the ancient one, raised on Demon’s Night.”
    “Don’t jest about it!”
    He laughed. “Why not? We live in a modern age, and the old gods are dead. I fear you have a romantic imagination after all, my sweet, but that gives me hope. I find it hard, however, to imagine the third earl riding to the rescue of a dairy maid just because she’d warmed his bed.”
    “ Your ancestor, sir,” she pointed out. “Your blood.”
    “I’ve never seduced a maidservant in my life.”
    Rachel tried to move away from him. “We must return. . . .”
    He captured her hand, and raised it to his mouth. “I’m willing to turn over a new leaf for you.”
    “What?”
    He had turned her hand and was kissing her palm.“Reform. Try new ways. . . .“He tickled her skin with his tongue.
    Despite her better instincts, she was tempted. “You will become a sober, virtuous citizen?”
    He captured her other hand and held them both against his heart. “Of course not. I mean that I’m willing to try seducing a maid, a maidenly lady. . . .”
    Rachel dragged her hands free. “Never!” she snapped, and fled down the gallery. At the last minute she stopped to compose herself, hand on unsteady chest. She glanced back and found him strolling after her, appearing unmoved by their time together, and unimpressed by her rejection.
    He escorted her back into the drawing room with perfect propriety. Rachel avoided the earl by sitting by his elderly relative, Lady Ida.
    “He’s a rare rascal,” the raddled old woman said.
    “I fear he is, ma’am.”
    “Needs a good wife. In my day he’d have been shackled when he