Susan Paul - The Heiress Bride

Rosaleen fought him, freeing one hand to hit his rockhard chest. “Let me go, you lecherous goat! Let me go!”

Hugh was laughing so hard he could barely speak. “R-Rosaleen! D-don’t!” He burst into another storm of laughter. “Stop it! S-stop, my 1-lady!”

“Oh!” Rosaleen cried, outraged. “How dare you laugh at me, you foul ravisher! How dare you!” She drew up a fist and hit his solid chest again, hurting herself more than him. “I hate you!”

Hugh tried to stop laughing. He tried so very hard, yet he couldn’t help himself. And Rosaleen didn’t help. He had never seen anyone more perfectly beautiful and selfrighteous in his life than she, outraged.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to say, holding her tight even as she struggled against him. “No, ‘tis the truth I speak, Rosaleen.” He grinned into her furious face. “Last night you responded to me because you were drugged for your pain and hardly knew what you did. I assumed too much this night, thinking you would respond again just as readily. But I frightened you, did I not, my little innocent? You are but a maiden, and I have frightened you with my grown man’s desire.”

“You’re disgusting!” she said angrily. “You crawled into my bed to ravish me apurpose, even when you knew I wanted no such thing! Have you no morals at all?”

“Few,” he admitted honestly. “But I never would have taken your maidenhead, Rosaleen, I swear it. I wanted to share pleasure with you, sweeting, but I’d never do aught to hurt you.”

“You don’t think that what you were just doing hurt me?” she asked incredulously. “You were ravishing me!”

“That’s foolish,” Hugh replied, rolling away. “You’re too innocent to know what you speak of. If I’d been ravishing you, I wouldn’t have stopped, and I’d even now be mounted on your lovely body, taking my pleasure of you.” He stretched and yawned, then scratched his chest and settled beside her. “It’s over. Forget about it and get some sleep. We’ve a long day ahead of us on the morrow.”

“You can’t mean to sleep here!” she cried with disbelief, tossing off the arm that tried to crawl around her waist.

Hugh yawned again before answering. “Of course I do. Where else is there?”

She sat up. “God’s bones, man! You’ve the nerve of a devil!”

“Be quiet and go to sleep, Rosaleen.”

“Sleep! If you think that I’ll sleep in the same bed as you, Hugh Caldwell, then I pray you will think again!” Rosaleen started to get out of the bed but was stopped when a muscular arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her back onto the mattress and up against the hard body she had only minutes before been touching with her hands.

She opened her mouth to scream, but Hugh’s other hand came up and firmly, though gently, closed over it.

“Rosaleen, my sweet,” he said patiently, “we are only going to sleep. You have made yourself clear about not wanting to share any pleasures with me. I’d be a fool to force myself on such an unwilling shrew, especially when England is filled with warm and willing females who would be more than happy to lie with me. Now be quiet and go to sleep, else I’ll tie you to the bed and place a gag in your mouth.”

“You’re naught but a brute!” she huffed when he released her. “And I wish you would stop touching me!”

Hugh was reminded of how he had intimidated her earlier and felt instant remorse. Pulling his hands away, he rolled to his back and heard Rosaleen shuffle over to the far edge of the bed.

“Yes, I am,” he admitted, pushing away the desire to apologize to her yet again. He’d only known the wretched creature a few days and he’d already apologized to her more than he could remember apologizing to any other person. “And I hope you’ll keep that in mind until I’ve got you safely lodged with my brother. I warned you before we set out that I’m no gentle knight, or any kind of gentleman. I dare what I please, Rosaleen, and I take what I want. Remember that.”

A loud silence prevailed, until Rosaleen said, “I hope whoever you fought with earlier was able to match you. Mayhap you’ll have some bruises to make you miserable for a while.”

Hugh closed his eyes and smiled widely in the darkness. It would have been impossible for her not to have heard the fighting that had gone on downstairs two hours before, when he had taken on more than half the patrons in the tavern. They had pretty well destroyed the place, as usual, but Hugh had paid the innkeeper more than the trouble was worth. When it had all been over and he’d felt thoroughly relaxed, Hugh had bought drinks all around and had gotten pleasantly drunk with his newly found mates before finally coming upstairs to Rosaleen. He hadn’t meant to touch her when he had first crawled into the bed, but she had looked so sweet lying there, like an angel, that he hadn’t been able to resist.

“He was,” Hugh admitted with easy contentment, “and I will.”

“You are crazed, my lord,” she said, yawning, “and I wish you the joy of your wounds.”

“Good night, Rosaleen.”

“Good night, you beast.”

It was late the next day before Hugh finally turned their horses off the main road. They rambled along a side road for a few minutes and then stopped. In front of them, still some distance away, stood an imposing, venerable monastery, that Rosaleen knew by reputation. In fact, though she had seldom been through this area of England before, she was well aware of where they were. It would have been impossible not to know, for this land belonged to Sir Alexander Baldwin, the Lord of Gyer, who was widely known as one of King Henry’s richest and most powerful barons.

“Is this where we’ll be spending the night, then, Hugh Caldwell?” she asked, turning to look at him.

He didn’t answer, but sat stiffly atop his steed, staring at the monastery.

“Yes,” he replied at last, his voice taut.

Rosaleen wondered at the change that had come over him during the past few hours. He had wakened in a good mood that morn; had, in truth, enjoyed himself greatly with teasing her over the fact that she had curled against him for warmth during the night. But during the last several miles he had grown quiet, and even short-tempered, answering her questions with sharp replies plainly meant to tell her that he wanted to be left alone, until Rosaleen had actually wished he would start teasing her again.

Earlier, when they had passed by the small barony of Wallewyn, he had become increasingly grim, and when Rosaleen had begged that they stop at that place and rest for a short time, he had practically growled at her.

“I’ll not step foot in that damned place again,” he’d said tightly. “Ever. We’ll keep on.”

Those had been the last words he’d spoken to her until this moment.

“It is early to stop yet. Should we not press on and spend the night in Gyer?”

He shook his head. “We’ll spend the night here.”

He looked so strange that Rosaleen felt a little afraid.

“Very well, Hugh Caldwell. We’ll stay here.”

He was silent again, gazing hauntedly ahead.

Rosaleen cleared her throat. “Will we be spending the night in the middle of the road, then? Or shall we go down?”

Hugh turned to look at her, and the fire in his eyes nearly burned her to a cinder. His hands were clenched so tightly around the reins of his steed that his knuckles showed white.

“We will go, my lady, but I want you to know that the only reason I even came within a day’s ride of this place is because of you.”

He spurred his horse forward and galloped toward the monastery, leaving a stunned Rosaleen to follow. Above them, Amazon, having been loosed to feed herself an hour earlier, circled and gave her fierce cry.