Read His Rebel Bride (Brothers in Arms Book 3) for Free Online Page B

with it…
    She shook her head to clear the stray thought. “So, because you were but repaying his misdeed makes yours somehow more right?”
    “War is not about fairness, Maeve. It is about domination, about the power to possess your claim. I have come here to do that.”
    Maeve could not look away from Kildare’s face. Gone was the dangerous grin and easy charm. The man who stood before her with grim eyes and lightning-fast fists was all warrior. She shivered and resented her own hesitance.
    Irish women bowed to no one, least of all English beasts.
    “Then possess your claim, if you can,” she shot out with contempt. “But do not kill my brother in the process, you oaf.”
    Surprise overtook his hawkish features. “Your brother? You are one of the O’Shea sisters?”
    “Aye.”
    “And these are the other three?” He gestured to her sisters still standing beside the mud pit, fighting illness, shock, and fear.
    “Aye. What of us?”
    That smile crept across his mouth again, inching up the ends by degrees until his eyes danced with mischief and challenge—and Maeve’s stomach began to flit, most certainly with anxiety. She refused to think of it as aught else.
    “King Henry sent me here to take one of you to wife.”
    Maeve felt certain she could not possibly have heard him correctly. Wife? Henry Tudor expected one of them to wed such a fierce, conceited, glib, handsome scoundrel?
    Who, unless she had too many bats in the belfry, would willingly do such a foolish thing?
    Besides, she could think of other reasons not to wed him. Many of them.
    “You cannot do such a thing, for the Statue of Kilkenney prohibits the English from marrying the—”
    “Irish?” he interrupted, still smiling. Somehow, though, it looked strained. “Yes, I believe that was mentioned to the king.”
    “And he sent you anyway?” She frowned.
    Kieran nodded, the smile now fading altogether. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and muttered an oath of disgust when he came away with mud.
    “Aye, he sent me. My good friend Aric, who has the king’s ear, reminded his highness that my father was an O’Neill.”
    Maeve blanched. She could not have been more shocked had he told her snow would fall come July. Him, of Irish blood?
    There was no trace of his heritage in his dress, his speech, or his manner. Was such possible?
    “Nay,” she breathed.
    “Oh, aye. So you see, I can wed any of you I wish. And I will do just that, sweet Maeve. By week’s end.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Though Kieran was in no great rush to take a bride, the look of shock on Maeve’s fair face, her for-once-mute mouth, nearly made the moment worthwhile.
    And over the next few days, he could relish the delicious torment of reminding her that he was expected to take a wife from among her and her sisters—and give no hint as to who he might choose. True, he knew little of Maeve, but he did know such teasing would drive her to fury.
    All the better.
    Smiling once more, he opened his mouth to bait the wonderfully stunned Maeve, when the other three O’Shea sisters came dashing up to her side.
    “What?” demanded Jana. “You’re to wed one of us?”
    “Aye,” he confirmed, then glanced down to the woman’s swollen belly with a grimace. So much for breeding this one soon. She was far ahead of him in that game.
    The woman’s dark eyes flashed in her pale face. Her faded lips pursed with indignation, flaring them with color. “I would end my life before breeding myself to an English dog.”
    “Did you not hear him say he was Irish?” Brighid asked, smiling happily, as if that solved everything.
    Jana scowled at her youngest sister. “Being of Irish blood does not make him Irish of heart, you foolish girl.”
    With that, the pregnant woman knelt to her unconscious brother with as much grace as a woman mere days from delivering a babe could.
    Kieran glanced at the remaining three. Fiona wrung her hands, and her mouth curled up in an uncertain smile. She