Selfish Is the Heart by Megan Hart

Author:Megan Hart
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Man-woman relationships, Fantasy fiction, Paranormal, Erotic fiction, Fiction, Romance, Forced marriage, General
ISBN: 9780425234563
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

The first time Cassian Toquin set his gaze upon Bertricia Miltrelli the sun had just come out from behind a cloud and covered her in fire. Golden hair, golden gown, even her skin had been cast with a sheen of gold. In the span of two heartbeats, mayhap three, she’d turned in conversation with her companion, and Cassian had stumbled so clumsily he went to a knee upon the stones and tore his trousers.

Calvis had helped him up.

“Leave off the ale if you’re going to be a fumblefoot. Must I carry you?”

“No.” Cassian shook his head.

Calvis was already following his brother’s gaze. “Ah, the lady? Really, Cass? Her?”

“She is . . .” Cassian was unable to find the words to describe her.

“She’s the bosom companion of yonder lemon-mouthed lass, Raeletta Demanns.”

Cassian knew Raeletta, the daughter of their father’s old school friend, and her sister Sarenissa, too. “She grew up.”

“We all do.” Calvis slung an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “Don’t tell me you’re going to let a new-sprung set of breasts distract you from the fact that Raeletta Demanns is a pain in the arse.”

“I’m not looking at Raeletta.”

Calvis scoffed and knuckled Cassian’s hair until he pulled away. “Her bosom companion is no less the she-hound. Home with her for the holiday. They’re both here because our mothers have determined a brannigan is the best way to matchmake.”

Cassian started, tearing his gaze at last from the three young women now examining his mother’s bush of captain’s buttons. “With us?”

“By the Arrow, I should think not. Think you our mothers find either of the pair of us ready for wedding? And I daresay neither would like to imagine us ready for bedding, either.”

“Raeletta is a year younger than us. Sarenissa a year younger even than that.”

Calvis shrugged. “Girls are settled quicker than us. Besides, no matter the affection Madame Demanns has cultivated for our mother, she thinks we two are Void-spawned.”

Cassian shrugged away from Calvis’s insistent grip. “She thinks that of you.”

“Oh, ho, ho.” Calvis grinned, not at all insulted. “What’s the difference between us aside from an inch or two of prick I gained somehow when you didn’t?”

Calvis’s taunts wouldn’t work today. Not in front of their guests. Bertricia, Cassian thought, his heart already lost. Only when his brother poked his ribs did he look again.

“Give it up, Cass. She’ll never look at you the way you’re already staring at her. She’s not born for the likes of us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The breeze carried the sound of her voice to him, and Cassian flushed with deep-seated heat even though the day wasn’t overwarm.

“It means she’s meant for courting by someone established. Wealthy. Probably for Grayson Delenard. He has a commission in the king’s guard.”

Cassian looked at his brother. The man in question was, indeed, a guest of their parents. “He’s too old for her.”

“Ah, but still fit. The man practices the Art every day and could fight off a room of men bent on killing him. Or the king.

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