Kingdom Collection: Books 1-3 (Kingdom Series) by Marie Hall

Author:Marie Hall
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Marie Hall Publishing
Published: 2013-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Her soft body wrapped around his like a warm hug. Gerard hadn’t wanted her in his bed tonight, hadn’t wanted to remember the humiliation of revealing he couldn’t read. Of knowing she viewed him as less than, just like Belle had.

Her breaths were soft on his bare chest, tickling the hairs, and he rubbed her back. He’d not talked the rest of the day and she’d not forced him. After they’d dropped Briley off he’d gutted the trout they’d caught and prepared their dinner in silence. Once they’d eaten, he’d cleared the dishes, and she’d walked off. Betty hadn’t asked him to watch yet another one of her awful Manga cartoons, and he’d left for his room, knowing this night she’d not join him. An hour later he was almost asleep when she crept into his room, pulled the sheets back, and snuggled up to him. That’d been three hours ago.

Why would she come? He was beneath her, intellectually inferior. His chest ached.

“I’m not stupid, Cherie.”

She rolled over. Wide guileless eyes stared at him. “I never thought you were.”

“You’re awake?” he sighed, sitting up when she disentangled herself. He propped his head against the pillow, and stared out the window at the full moon that lit the room in its silvery glow.

She brushed her fingertips against the corner of his lips, forcing him to look back at her. Betty smiled, full lips curving into a sexy tilt, and he clenched his jaw, not wanting to want her. Not wanting to know her anymore.

“I know you’re not stupid,” she said softly.

He shook her hand off. “I never needed to learn. Where I’m from, where I live, it’s not expected and generally frowned upon. A man is to be out hunting, providing for his family. One who sits and reads is considered vain and lazy.”

She shook her head. “Gerard, I’m not judging.”

“She did!” He snapped, shoving his face into hers. In some way wanting to see her eyes fill with fear, wanting her to leave, to run off, to forget he existed. That all the humiliations, one heaped upon another, would cease when she forgot him.

Betty jerked his chin. “I’m not her. I’m Betty Hart. I don’t judge.”

He snarled. “Of course you do. You judged me from the moment you met me.”

“Hey,” she smacked him on the chest, “probably because you were trying to play tonsil hockey with me, makes a girl jumpy.”

He shook his head. “You make no sense.”

She sighed. “Gerard, I didn’t know you. But today, seeing you with Briley, how patient you were, how gentle…”

The pendant on her chest began to glow, bands of deepest indigo swirled like newly cut amethyst in the sunlight, and his pulse jerked hard, blood rushed to his ears. She did not stop talking, did not seem to notice what he’d seen, what had stirred hope like a seedling shooting from within the earth. The pendant still glowed in red and gold, but now there was purple, and the anger abated with the knowledge.

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