Read By Grace Possessed for Free Online

with shock. Mayhap they would both be warm then.
    Mayhap he was a half-wit.
    He had no pretence to sainthood, so could not trust his hands not to stray where they did not belong. She might scream, then, fighting away from him. Or worse, she might not. She might turn to him with soft murmurs, sweet kisses and sighs, urging him to the one place certain to hold the sweet heat of paradise. And he would go there, blindly willing, strutted in rampant desire. He would enter her in heart-pounding fervor, taking her wet softness, her clinging, pulsing comfort, in such mindless rut that he’d care not a whit what came on the morrow.
    It was a trap, that comfort, one that could close them both in its stranglehold and never let them go. A single step in the lady’s direction now and their fates were set. Conscience as well an English king would demand it.
    He had given his word that he would never marry her.
    Rising so abruptly that his knees cracked and he dumped snow from his back and shoulders with a slithering crash, Ross moved to drag another log onto the fire, then another, and another. He piled the timber high until the flames spat and crackled like demons, lighting the night for a dozen yards around, spreading heat like a benediction. He laid on more until he was sure it would warm the lady, yes, and do it more safely, for all its fiery danger, than he could.
    Wrapping himself in his plaid once more, then, he squatted well back from the great, bright conflagration. Face set, eyes hooded, he endured.

3
    C ate stood waiting as the horsemen rounded the bend in the track. She’d heard them coming from some distance away, a full score of gentlemen and men-at-arms, making a great clatter on the frozen track. The watery sun overhead reflected on helms and sword hilts with a dull sheen, and their horses blew white plumes into the icy air. They had come from the king, for they rode under his banner.
    She should have been overjoyed at their arrival. Instead, her chest was tight with apprehension.
    The snow had stopped by the time she woke an hour ago, and the world was hushed under its smothering layer of white. The only thing that moved was a bird or two, flitting among branches that clicked and clacked with ice. Her skirt and cloak had been wet near the knee where snow had drifted into her shelter and melted with the heat of Ross’s fire. That burned still, a great, leaping pyre that sent a plume of gray-blue smoke skyward. It was, without doubt, what had brought their rescuers to them.
    Ross stood a few yards away, where he had beenbreaking more limbs to thrust into the flames. A bleak expression lay in his eyes, and his mouth was set in a grim line. He made no move to step forward or lift a hand in greeting, but only waited for the horsemen to come to him.
    Nor did Cate move from where she had taken a stance with her back to the fire to allow her skirts to dry. She recognized the cavalcade’s leader as Winston Dangerfield, Lord of Trilborn, and was in no hurry to acknowledge him. She would as soon someone else, anyone else at all, had arrived as its head.
    What chance that his presence was a coincidence, she thought, when she and his sworn enemy had been lost from the hunt at the same time? What chance, when he had made her the object of his cautious gallantry since the early autumn?
    Trilborn was of medium height, well-made, and far too satisfied withal. On this dreary day, he wore a black surcoat edged in silver braid over his mail, both covered by a heavy black cloak that was lined with beaver and held on his shoulders by a multitude of silver chains. His hat was of beaver, as well, and stuck with a great white plume that curled over the brim to lie on his shoulder. He was pleasing enough in his features, though his peat-brown eyes were a little close together and his chin made to appear needle-sharp by his pointed black beard.
    “Lady Catherine, by all the saints!” He slowed his mount to a walk, throwing up a hand with more