Outrageous by Christina Dodd

Author:Christina Dodd [Christina Dodd]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780061748837
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006-11-04T23:00:00+00:00

12

As the door shut softly behind Rhys, Angharad, and Lionel, Marian stared after them and wondered if they were crazed. Trust them because they were kin? What madness was that?

Yet she did trust Angharad. ’Twas impossible not to. And Rhys…well, if Art were Lionel’s companion, and Griffith were Lionel’s father-figure, then Rhys was his hero. He stuck to Rhys like a burr to a sock. She blushed to remember Rhys’s hurt pride when she’d demanded he swear himself to secrecy. “Why is Harbottle here?” she asked.

Griffith sighed and pushed himself away from the window. “He apparently followed your trail into Wales, and when he lost that, he asked directions to Castle Powel.”

“Why?”

He stalked toward the bed, slow and silent. “Because he wants you.”

“Nonsense.” Her voice wavered a little, and she steadied it. “My father must have sent him.”

“Your father seems to have washed his hands of him. As have we. We turned him out four days ago with dry clothes and barely enough food to reach England, if he walks briskly. But he seems willing to defy the fates to get his hands on you, for we’ve had reports of a man watching the castle.” He stepped onto the dais and climbed up on the mattress. “In fact, several reports.”

She wanted to demand more in the way of explanation, but he took off his boots. And his doublet. And when his hands went to the ties of his hose, she whispered, “What are you doing?”

“Coming to get the answers about Lionel. Isn’t this how I got the answers about you?” He stripped off his hose, pulled his shirt over his head, and divested himself of his drawers in a twisting dance that kept her dizzy with his unpredictability. “You came and lay in bed with me, we talked, we loved, and when we had finished, I knew your secrets.”

The blood sang in her veins now, and she no longer wondered why she should get well. It was so she could run away. “It wasn’t so…”

“So?”

Or perhaps, run toward. “So simple.”

He chuckled, low and deep. “’Tis the simplest thing in the world. ’Tis why the Lord God made us so different—so we’d fit together well.”

He stretched out on the bed beside her, all the long length of him bare and brown and brawny, and held her when she would have edged off the bed. Lying down, she clamped her arms at her sides so the blankets were tight around her body. “Someone might come in.”

“We’re in a Welsh household, and by now everyone knows the banns will be called on Saturday.” With a smile, he tucked Lionel’s pillow close against hers and lay so his head rested against her shoulder. “Welshmen have better manners than that.”

With that he seemed content. He said nothing else, made no move, while the minutes ticked by and Marian grew so tense that she thought the tendons in her neck would pop. When she couldn’t bear the silence anymore, she burst out, “What do you want?”

“Several things.

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