Heather Graham Read Online Free

to—”
    “Ah, yes, the hell with the English blood in you—you had that French vow to keep! Well, that somewhat explains why you would so wretchedly use the very king within whose household you were raised.”
    “Then give me over to the king!” she cried out, alarmed at how desperately she pleaded. “Let’s end this—”
    He shook his head slowly. “End it? We’ve barely begun.”
    “Surely,” she mocked, “you are needed elsewhere. You are the king’s champion. Have you no enemies to challenge tonight? No dragons to slay?”
    He smiled. “No dragons this evening for me, my pet. Just one for you. Me.” His glittering gold eyes narrowed dangerously. “Tell me, milady, just what did you write to that dolt, Langlois? You had taken no vows? No marriage was consummated?”
    Color stained her cheeks. “I merely said that I needed his assistance.”
    “You were willing to lie with him to reach the French king?” he demanded.
    She shook her head, blood draining from her face. “You were there! You know that I was not—”
    “Ah, yes, my love, thank God that I am aware you were not willing to give anything away—for free.”
    “How dare you—”
    “How dare you ask?” he demanded, cutting her off, his voice deep and husky with fury.
    She was still for a moment. The room seemed tight and small.
    Once, she had been determined to deny him. Maybe she had been afraid even then of the tempest he would create within her heart. Maybe she had always known that if he touched her but once …
    Adrien continued. “You seduced him with promises of your hand in marriage. Sweet Jesu, milady, but you speak of vows! I remember the vows you made to me , quite clearly, if you do not. Every vow.”
    He was walking toward her. It was all that she could manage to keep from screaming aloud, from running madly and wildly, only to slam herself against the wall.
    “I remember the vows!” she whispered.
    He stood just inches from her, and she felt his tremendous strength and heat as if he touched her. His eyes raked her with their golden fire and now she did move back again, just inches, yet he followed her. She stood to the far wall and he set a palm against it, leaning closer to her still, and smiling once again.
    “Ah, milady, do you know what astounds and dismays me most?” he demanded.
    She wet her lips warily. “What?”
    “That you could say that our marriage had not been consummated. Indeed, I remember even that first night so very well!”
    “Aye!” she cried, newly alarmed, for he had thought her guilty of treachery that night as well. She decided she must go on the offensive. “You threatened to prove to that rabble tonight that our marriage was real. You call yourself a knight! You speak of chivalry—”
    “I seldom speak of chivalry. And I merely informed the fools that a midwife could be summoned to prove that you were no sweet, innocent lass!”
    She gasped. “You would have had me—”
    “I would have given nothing to those wretched fools, milady, even to prove to your too-amorous but well-besotted Frenchman that you are legally and in every way very much a wife— my wife. But there is something I do most earnestly intend to give you!”
    She swallowed hard, fought for courage, narrowed her eyes. “And what is that, milord tyrant?”
    “A jog to your memory, milady wife. I had not realized I had so failed in my husbandly duties that you could forget such a thing as the consummation of your marriage.”
    “Oh, you fail at nothing!” she cried out. “And my memory is just fine. I haven’t forgotten a thing—”
    She broke off, gasping as she found her blanket wrenched from her and thrown to the floor. She recognized the glitter in his eyes as more than anger and she caught her breath in dismay, thinking of the times when she had longed for him, ached for him, and yet …
    He would not forget what she had done tonight, and he would not forgive her, and she couldn’t even fathom where they would