Bride of the Beast

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Book: Read Bride of the Beast for Free Online
Authors: Sue-Ellen Welfonder
she'd heard his voice.
    She stiffened, bracing herself against the disconcerting sensation she was teetering on the edge of a bottomless chasm and about to lose her balance. "Not all at Dunlaidir are as enamored of our visitors as you and Eoghann," she said, tossing a pointed glance at the empty laird's chair.
    The seat of honor usually occupied by her grown stepson, James Keith.
    "Or have you seen James since their arrival?" Ire danced atop each word Caterine spoke. "He's abed. He said his leg pains him, but I suspect the real reason for his absence is because he, too, isn't pleased my sister sent a Sassunach to help us restore Dunlaidir's failing fortunes."
    Irritation flashed across Rhona's face but she masked it with an artful shrug. "Would he exercise his leg more, he'd have no need to resent the arrival of those more able to defend his home than he."
    "You are too hard on him. It is not his fault that he is lame."
    "He is not lame, he was kicked by a horse." Rhona blew out an impatient breath. "Naught would ail him at all if he'd stop pitying himself."
    Pausing, she cast a meaningful glance at the scar-faced champion. "There is one who manages quite well, and with a more daunting impairment than an aching leg."
    Caterine, too, peered across the hall, irritation making her bold. She stared hard, her open gaze searching every inch of the man's strapping build, looking for faults and finding none. Worse, she couldn't deny the ease with which he conversed with Eoghann, one of the household's most loyal retainers.
    Even more telling, the slump-shouldered seneschal stood straighter the longer he listened to whatever the Sassunach knight was saying to him. Bobbing his head in apparent agreement, Eoghann talked profusely and gestured about the darkened hall.
    Like her sister and Rhona, the seneschal had clearly fallen under the man's spell.
    A condition she would not fall prey to.
    Rhona yanked on her sleeve. "Have you noticed the bulge of his arm muscles and the size of his shoulders? You could do worse, my lady," she purred. "Many are the maids who would crave his favor."
    "Who would not notice his fine form?" Caterine snapped, annoyance loosening her tongue. "Or do you believe me as withered as Sir Hugh claims? Beyond taking note of a man so tall, so broad-shouldered?"
    Rhona gave her a wounded look. "Ne'er would I call you—"
    "I am neither wilted nor blind," Caterine cut off Rhona's prattle before the younger woman sent her into a fine fit of pique. "Acknowledging the flawlessness of his form is no different from admiring the fine lines of the great warhorses his accursed countrymen ride about on."
    Except no English destrier had ever set her heart a-flutter with one gallant hand kiss.
    Rhona reached across the table and poked her arm. "In the shadows of the hall, it's almost possible to imagine what he must've looked like before he was scarred."
    "In mercy's name!" Caterine gave her friend a sharp look. "It matters naught to me what he looked like then or ..." she trailed off to stare at the Sassunach's table.
    He and his men now stood, and his companions had donned fur-lined cloaks. Two of them followed Eoghann toward the hall's vaulted entrance, disappearing with the seneschal into the cold night while the other two made for the turnpike stairs.
    Stairs that led to the wall-walk.
    They meant to patrol Dunlaidir's ramparts.
    Caterine's breath caught at the unexpected lurching of her heart. An unaccustomed sense of being protected, cared for, cloaked her with all the warmth and comfort of a much-used and well-favored blanket.
    An unfamiliar emotion, but powerful enough to wage fierce battle against her pique.
    Too many were the months she'd gone to bed wary, half afraid to sleep lest she awaken to find de la Hogue's henchmen looming over her.
    Or worse, the earl himself.
    A sharp kick to her shin shattered the troubling image. "He—is—coming," Rhona mouthed the warning, barely finishing before the tall English knight

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