Read Make Me Love You for Free Online

back around to say in earnest this time, “I must point out that your war is not with this girl, but with her brother. Treating her ill will serve no purpose.”
    “Actually, it serves a very important purpose. It will cause Robert Whitworth and his family to lose their lands and title.”
    Gabriel’s eyes flared. “I’m reassured that there is method to your madness. Pardon me, I meant—logic.”
    “This is not a good time to test my patience, Gabe,” Dominic warned, then yelled for his valet. “Andrew, bring my riding clothes. I’m not going to be in this house when the enemy knocks.”
    Gabriel sighed in exasperation. “Dr. Bates ordered bed rest.”
    “I’ll rest when I get back from riding off this rage.”
    “You will need Bates again if you persist in doing that! Damnit, Dom, be reasonable. You’ll rip out your stitches if you ride. Royal won’t like the smell of blood.”
    “My horse doesn’t like a lot of things, you included. How he will react to blood remains to be seen. Now enough dire predictions. For once, just do as you are told.”
    Gabriel made a sound of pure frustration before he grumbled, “I’ll fetch Bates back here, then deal with your bride.”
    Dominic started walking slowly toward his dressing room to meet Andrew halfway. “She’s not going to be my bride.”
    Already heading to the door, Gabriel didn’t look back as he promised, “I will put her in the most inhospitable room you have.”
    “The tower,” Dominic stressed.
    “Certainly, even though it doesn’t have a bed.”
    “She can sleep on the bloody floor!”
    The door closed on that order.

Chapter Seven

    “T HERE ’ S ANOTHER ONE, ” BROOKE said, pointing out the coach window at the ruins of a small castle.
    “Many of the smaller ones in Yorkshire were built to protect against incursions from Scotland. Yorkshire was meant to be a stalwart wall that would keep the Scottish armies from reaching the south.”
    Brooke glanced at the maid and giggled. “You were listening to my history lessons, weren’t you?”
    Alfreda nodded. “I had to. That tutor wasn’t supposed to be teaching you history. Your parents would have fired him if they’d found out. So I guarded the door. You don’t remember tempting him to lose his job with all your questions?”
    “Vaguely.”
    Looking out the window again, Brooke wondered if this small ruin was on Wolfe land. They should be on it by now unless the Wolfes didn’t actually own much land in Yorkshire.
    “I wonder if we’ll be here long enough to see all this heatherbloom.” They’d been told it would flower in late summer. “It must be beautiful when it does, there’s so much of it.”
    “The Yorkshire moors are quite striking, even without the heather in bloom. But I prefer more heavily forested terrain,” Alfreda replied.
    The sky was cloudy this morning, and without the sun the landscape looked a bit bleak and gloomy to Brooke. She wondered if her thoughts were just coloring it so.
    “Where the deuce is it?” she said impatiently, still looking out the window on her side of the coach.
    Alfreda didn’t need to ask what Brooke was referring to. “On my side.”
    Brooke gasped and quickly changed places with the maid, but she sighed dismally when she saw the house she’d been looking for. “I hope that’s not it.”
    “I’ll wager it is.”
    The façade of the three-story manor house was made of dark gray stone that looked almost black, though that might be because moss or ivy was covering it. It was hard to tell at this distance. Two corner towers rose above the massive rectangular edifice, giving it the appearance of a castle. A large tree stood in front of each tower. Both were in full bloom, obscuring her view of the rest of the manor.
    “It looks forlorn, gloomy, forbidding.”
    Alfreda laughed at that and stressed, “No, it does not. It would not appear that way to you if the sun would stop hiding from us. It’s going to rain soon. Let’s hope we