Unconquered by Bertrice Small Read Free Book Online Page B

Amanda following quickly.
    The new lord of the manor waited until the door had closed behind the three. Then, reaching out, he pulled Miranda to her feet and drew her close to him. “Why are you fighting me, wildcat?” he asked gently.
    A quick, cruel retort sprang to her lips only to fade as she looked up into his eyes. They were strangely tender. “Let us make the best of a difficult situation,” he said. “Wyndsong cannot be without its lady, and I must have a wife. You love Wyndsong, Miranda. Marry me and it will always be yours. Many good marriages have come from less than we have, and I promise I will be good to you.”
    “B-but I don’t know you,” she protested, “and I don’t love you.”
    “Couldn’t you learn to love me, wildcat?” he asked softly, andthen his mouth closed over hers. It was over in a moment. His lips, petal-soft, gave her her first kiss, a gentle, passionless kiss that nonetheless set her pulse racing.
    “Why did you do that?” she asked, suddenly shy.
    “I can’t be hitting you forever,” he answered, smiling down at her.
    “Oh! You are hateful!” she cried, remembering clearly, and knowing that he remembered just as clearly her spanking of a few days earlier.
    “You haven’t given me your answer yet, Miranda,” he persisted. “If you marry me Amanda will be able to wed Lord Swynford, and be happy. I know you love your sister.”
    “Yes,” she snapped, “Amanda will have Adrian—and you will have Papa’s fortune. Are you sure that is not your real interest?”
    “Oh, wildcat,” he laughed, “what a suspicious creature you are. I don’t need your father’s money. I inherited quite a nice fortune from my grandmother and I’ve tripled that money in the last ten years. If you marry me I’ll put your father’s money in trust for you. You will get half of it next spring on your eighteenth birthday and the rest when you turn twenty-one. It will all be yours.”
    “And if I refuse?”
    “You, your mother, and your sister will always have a home here, but nothing more. I will not dower either of you.”
    “Then I have no choice but to marry you, sir.”
    “It will not, I assure you, be a fate worse than death.”
    “That remains to be seen,” she answered tartly.
    He laughed. “Life with you will not be dull, will it, wildcat?” he said, but she merely raised an elegant eyebrow in reply, and he laughed again. What an adorable witch she was, he thought, and what a woman she would be one day. “May I tell your mama that you have accepted my proposal, then?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yes, Jared . I would like to hear you say my name, Miranda.”
    “Yes, Jared,” she said softly, and he felt his heart quicken. It puzzled him. Why should she have that effect on him?
    Dorothea and Amanda greeted their news with little cries of delight, which Miranda brutally stilled. “It is hardly a love match, Mama. He wants a wife, and has offered to put Papa’smoney in trust for me. I want Amanda happy with Lord Swynford. Jared will get his wife, I shall have the money, and Mandy gets Adrian. It is all quite businesslike.”
    Jared had to stop himself from laughing. Dorothea, his sweet but painfully proper mother-in-law-to-be, looked terribly embarrassed. Miranda then turned her sharp tongue on her betrothed. “Will you remain on Wyndsong until we marry, sir, or rejoin your ship?”
    “I am not a member of the Navy, Miranda, but I do hold the right to privateer for the government. In the last six months my ship has rescued thirty-three impressed American seamen from English ships. I want it to continue to sail even if I don’t.”
    “You are quite free to follow the sea, sir,” she said sweetly.
    He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it, and said smoothly, “I should not miss our honeymoon even for the honor of our beloved country, darling wildcat.”
    Blushing furiously, she shot him a venomous look, and he grinned back wickedly. He was going to enjoy watching her grow up, he