Tori Phillips by Lady of the Knight Read Free Book Online Page A

again, but Sir Andrew caught her hand once more. Rosie nearly swore at him, but bit her tongue instead.
    “A lady is always served her food,” he instructed with a grin.
    She wanted to scream the tent down. “Haint ever been a lady and haint ever been served!”
    The frustrating lord nodded as if she had spoken a grain of pure wisdom. “Then Jeremy will serve only me and you can watch me eat.” With his free hand, he snapped his fingers. The squire lifted the roasted chicken out of Rosie’s reach, carved several large portions and heaped half of it on his master’s plate.
    Her lower lip quivered. “Ye said I could eat if I sat like ye wanted me to and if I said grace,” she muttered. “Ye are no better than any other deceiving man even if ye do wear finer clothes.”
    He caressed her hand. The action warmed her despiteher anger. “If a lady desires to partake of a meal, she is served,” he repeated with the tenacity of a billy goat.
    Rosie swallowed her last shred of pride. “So serve me then.”
    Sir Andrew smiled, then leaned over his mound of food. His lips brushed against the back of her hand. Rosie inhaled sharply at the contact. Her pulse quickened. She felt she might swoon. With a gentle squeeze, he released her. She hid her hand in her lap. Her skin burned with the imprint of his lips. When she glanced at him, she was startled to see a smoldering intensity darken the hazel of his eyes. Then the raw look disappeared and his usual smile returned.
    Rosie was only dimly aware that Jeremy had spoken to her. Having no idea what he had asked, she merely nodded. All the while she stared at her host as if she had never seen him before. What spell had he cast upon her with such a simple gesture that it made her forget her hunger—except for more of his touch?
    Sir Andrew’s mouth twitched. “Eat your supper, my dear,” he suggested in a husky whisper.
    The poor girl gasped when she looked down at her plate. Jeremy had piled it high with the other half of the roasted capon, a wedge of cold mutton pie, a large slice of soft white cheese over which he had spooned the honey-mustard sauce and a side dish of spiced peaches. Rosie lost the disturbing pallor in her face as she fell to eating with both hands. The capon’s lemon glaze ran down her bare arms to nearly her elbow before she stopped its journey with a quick lick of her dainty pink tongue.
    Andrew opened his mouth to instruct her in the proper use of her untouched napkin and the pearl-handled forkthat lay by her plate. Then he checked himself. Plainly, the child was starving. Etiquette lessons could wait. He cursed himself for teasing her. He should have realized that the whoremaster would not have wasted his own coin to feed his wenches when there were rich gentlemen like Andrew to do it for him.
    He drained the smooth claret and beckoned his squire to refill his goblet. Had the evening turned intensely hot or was it the wild creature opposite him that made the air seem thick with tension and his clothing uncomfortably tight around his tender parts? He had no idea what had prompted him to kiss Rosie’s hand, nor did he understand why the experience now made him feel like a callow youth green-sick with his first love. Andrew was too jaded for such childish feelings. He had kissed a hundred ladies in his day and few of them had ever made his heart leap into his throat or his blood pound against his temples. Obviously his discomfort was due to the headiness of the French wine and the close perfumed air inside the pavilion.
    Rosie looked up from her feast, her complexion now as rosy as her name. She licked her fingers clean of the honey-mustard sauce. “Is there something amiss with your food?”
    Andrew merely shook his head. How could he tell her that her fresh-washed beauty had stolen his appetite for food? She fully expected him to rape her at any moment. His honest admission would only confirm her worst fears.
    He dipped a sliver of capon into its sauce