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    A KNIGHT OF TEMPTATION by EVIE NORTH
    (KNIGHTS OF PASSION)
    There were five of them, boys, whom Stephen
    the
    would-be-king
    had
    gathered together for safety. Their fathers were his strongest supporters, lords and barons who had been killed in the battle for the throne between Stephen and his cousin Matilda. He placed them in an orphanage connected to a monastery and there he trained them to grow into knightly warriors.
    The tattoo upon their arms proclaimed their allegiance to the king and each other, and their determination to win back their destiny.
     
    1
     
    Copyright © Evie North, 2013.
    All rights reserved KINDLE EDITION
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    1
     
    1150 AD, the north of England
    Melina avoided the eyes of her bodyguard. It was something she was becoming adept at, since her father had brought him into the household and given him the task of keeping watch over her all day, every day, and sleeping across the threshold to her chamber every night.
    But it was no use. Even with her head turned she could feel his dark eyes upon her.
    Deep dark pools that drew her into their depths, making her skin burn and her heart flutter. The one and only time she’d made the mistake of gazing into those eyes she’d paid the price, losing her wits entirely for several heartbeats.
    The man was handsome in a rugged way, his body hard and strong like a warrior’s should be, but it was more than that.
    There was something . . . Was it the look of him, the scent of him, the taste of him? Not that she’d touched his skin with her tongue yet, but she’d thought about it. At night, in her chamber, in her luxurious bed with its furs and curtains, all alone with him outside her door.
    Oh yes, Melina had the makings of a sensual woman and that was the trouble.
    Because she was promised to old Lord Saunders, her father’s ally in this bi tter c i v i l war between the cousins Stephen and Matilda, a war which had been raging now for over fifteen years and had torn
    England
    apart. Lord
    Saunders would help her father to hold onto his lands against Stephen’s army— lands he had taken by force at the beginning of the war—and marriage to Melina would consolidate their military union. The one thing Lord Saunders had insisted upon was that she be a virgin when she came to their bed that first time. Evidently his previous wife had lain with another man first and his heir did not resemble him at all. His lordship did not want such a thing to occur again, and
    he
    was
    insistent
    upon
    her
    maidenhead being intact. And so the bodyguard had come to keep watch on her.
    The bodyguard she dreamed of holding in her arms, naked.
    “Lady Melina?”
    The bodyguard’s voice was deep, the timbre of it brushing against her senses.
    Melina did not respond, humming to herself as if she was completely unaware of him standing so big at her back in the walled garden. She felt the heat of him like a blazing fire, she smelled the spicy scent of his skin. The ache between her legs grew more urgent, as it often was at night now, when she thought of him lying upon her threshold.
    Some nights the ache was so urgent that she had even taken the shameful step of touching herself to ease it.
    “Lady Melina.”
    His hand closed upon her arm.
    He wasn’t allowed to touch.
    Startled, Melina spun about, a frown furrowing her brow. His head was lowered from his greater height down to hers, but even so he was over a foot taller than she. She didn’t make the mistake of meeting his eyes, not this time, directing a cold stare beyond him