Read Linda Needham for Free Online Page B

Talia, what happened to Rufus?”
    She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, then said to Alex, “I’ll have a bed sent here to you, my lord guardian. If you need anything further, my chamber is on the next landing, and Jasper is below.”
    She turned to leave, but he took hold of her arm. She stopped and looked up patiently into his eyes.
    “Madam, you haven’t answered my question—”
    She frowned, glanced at each of the girls, then shook her head at him. “Please, my lord, the morning will have to be soon enough.”
    And then she was gone. Without a by-your-leave!
    The bewildering woman and the giggling girls and the frowning old man, and all those drooping flowers still tucked into her circlet and her belt.
    Bleeding blazes! Nothing had gone as he had imagined, beyond the bloodless battle and the simple transition of power. He’d expected to find an acquiescent and overwhelmed young woman; not an intelligent, too clever, passionate beautywho could so easily distract him from his intentions.
    A woman wholly entangled in her family; one she loved more dearly than her own life.
    The sort of love he’d lost long, long ago.
    He wouldn’t dare hang me, Alex. Kings don’t do that.
    But, oh, my brother, Henry hadn’t been just any king. What was the life of a ten-year-old hostage when it could satisfy his royal fit of outrage? After all, he’d murdered his own brother to gain the throne of England, and with it Normandy.
    It should have been me he hanged, Gil, not you.
    Bloody hell, it should have been their cunning bastard of a father. A man who had gladly offered two of his young sons as fodder for his dishonorable deeds.
    The sort of love that he’d learned to keep clear of.
    “Your bed, my lord. As my lady ordered.” Jasper entered abruptly with three other men, as though the woman had magical communications with her people.
    God knew the kind of enchantment she was capable of working on his men.
    “There in the corner, Jasper. I’ll be back.” Alex started out the door.
    “Would you like bathwater as well, my lord?”
    Great God, that sounded good. Leisurely andsteaming. But later. Just now, he had a castle to secure.
    “Bathwater, yes.”
    With any luck it would be well chilled by the time he returned—cold enough to divert his thoughts from the compelling woman who lived on the landing above.
    Are you going to marry him? A bizarre question. Asked not only by the woman’s sisters, but he was sure that he’d heard the same question from old Leod in the great hall.
    He crossed the courtyard, his mind sorting through the work ahead of him, the rest of him wondering why the devil the idea of Rufus laying a finger on the woman, let alone kissing her, should set his nerves on end.
     
    “I think you should have married Lord Alex right away, Talia!” Brenna breezed into the girls’ chamber, twirled around the room in her nightgown.
    Fiona joined her whirling dance. “He’s bushels more handsome than Rufus!”
    “And taller and grander!”
    “And nicer.”
    Nicer? A minute in de Monteneau’s presence, and the girls were enchanted. Not quite the response that would keep them safe from his influence. And nothing of the fear they’d had of Rufus and the others.
    “Quiet your voices; you’ll wake the girls.” Talia bent over Lissa and tucked the soft woolen blanket around her shoulders, then kissed Gemma on the top of her tousled red head, grateful that they could sleep through most anything.
    “You’ll marry him sooner or later, Talia. Just like what happened with the others.”
    “I never married a one of them, Brenna, if you recall.”
    “But this one’s different, I think.” Brenna dashed to the casement window and pushed open the drapes, then the shutter. “Did you see his dreamy eyes?”
    Dark as a moonless midnight and just as dangerous.
    “I don’t want to hear another word about marriage or kissing, Brenna. Not about Rufus, and certainly not about my new warder.”
    Marriage was