The Wagered Wench by Georgia Fox Read Free Book Online

think to find another woman and marry her, let me warn you, she will never take my—”
    “Do you bathe often in the stream?”
    She froze. How could he know? Had he seen her there and spied upon her?
    “You will not go there again unaccompanied.”
    Of course he wanted to rule her every move, while she would never be allowed to question him. “I do as I please,” she snapped.
    “Until now perhaps. No more.”
    “I have bathed in that stream for three years.”
    “And any man could have stumbled upon you, watched you, chased you down, had you on your back in the grass before you could scream once.”
    Elsinora pictured it vividly as he spoke. Saw him over her, his body hard, heavy, determined. Her heartbeat skipped from canter to gallop. She was suddenly too warm, perspiring under her gown. Her nipples formed two swollen beads, rubbing on her clothing. Somehow she forced her lips to argue. “No man in this place would dare lay hands on me.”
    His dark lashes drifted upward again, his gaze meeting hers but holding secrets, guarding them with quiet, steady reserve. “Until now, perhaps. No more.”
    The words lay even heavier between them the second time around. Did he dare threaten her? Fury bit into her chest, shortened her breath. “Go then and discuss my place with my father. Whatever you try to make me into, I am Gudderth’s daughter and so shall I always be.”
    Again he spoke quietly, “Until now, perhaps. If I decide upon it, you will no longer be Gudderth’s Daughter, but Dominic’s Wife.”
    He pursed his lips, began whistling a tune, and then slowly walked all the way around her, before turning his steps toward the hall again.
    Elsinora watched him for a moment, the sun on his bare back, the broad muscles flexing. And the narrow hips with breeches that drank in the damp from his skin. He still had not pulled his damnable breeches up!
    She thought of the girls in the cookhouse, any one of whom would gladly fulfill his base needs at the mere crook of a finger. They would do whatever he wanted, keep him content, while sniggering behind her back. How they would all love to see her brought down a peg, pushed aside by another woman he would make his mistress because she had refused.
    Sometimes she thought sadly, one had to keep the enemy close, or risk being shut out in the cold. He was there and he was apparently determined to claim his winnings. She had two choices: poison the bastard or marry him. And Elsinora was no murderess. Therefore she would have to be his wife, if she wanted to keep her place as mistress of Lyndower—the place she’d held since her mother died twelve years ago. She’d always known it would come to this. She must sacrifice her happiness for Lyndower.
    He was a stranger, but then any man sent by Count Robert to marry her would have been the same. He was ill-mannered, brutish, not at all the handsome, chivalrous husband she’d imagined for herself. But as Bertha had so kindly pointed out, what other choice did she have?
    * * * *
    Dominic stopped, still with his back to the maddening wench. He should keep walking, ignore her rather than engage in argument. Alas, he could feel her eyes shooting flaming arrows into his back. Her anger and frustration was too hot and she needed putting in her place, but she was also too fine a woman to be ignored.
    When he first saw her that morning, running after him across the muddy yard, he was struck anew by the vision of her vulnerable beauty. The sun shone bright in her hair, her eyes wide awake and sky-blue. Her gown, once again, was too big for her and yet too short, ending a few inches above her ankles. A growth spurt must have taken her by surprise at some point.
    He’d seen the way her gaze surreptitiously stroked his chest, almost afraid to do so, yet incapable of resistance. She must be curious about him, as he was about her. But rather than approach, she circled him, prodded him with a stick—in this case, her sharp, quarrelsome