Viscount Overboard (Ladies Least Likely Book 1) by Misty Urban

Author:Misty Urban [Urban, Misty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oliver Heber Books
Published: 2023-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

She was going to kill him.

Not on purpose, Pen knew. But not having Gwenllian ap Ewyas—not being able to hold her, touch her, win her for his own—was going to shred him into a million tiny fish-bite sized pieces. And she would doubtless laugh as she fed his chum to the salmon he’d seen fishermen hauling by the netful out of the River Usk.

He’d claimed the privilege of driving her to her harping appointment at Pencoed Castle. That was the first foolish thing.

What hadn’t been foolish was kissing her. But not kissing her again was going to drive him out of his mind.

He borrowed a horse and trap from the King’s Head, with Mr. Trett’s blessing, and she insisted on checking the harness before they set out. Yet another instance in which she refused to rely on anyone else, yet having heard her story, he could understand. She’d lost her mother, her remaining parent sent her to strangers, and then she’d been dishonestly wooed by the son of the house. Pen had no doubt the lad had pursued her with everything he had in him. A girl of her beauty, with the grace of a queen and that quick mind and sweet nature, under his roof and his for the taking? She hadn’t a chance.

And after trusting the boy’s blandishments and empty promises, she’d been turned out of that home, too.

Pen tried to imagine giving birth alone and unaided in the bleak of winter, with nothing but a dead babe to show for the effort. How had she not become hardened and cruel?

Yet at her lowest point, she’d found her way back to life by caring for others. Dovey. Evans. Everyone else who came to her, turned out of their rightful home. He could see how it weighed on her that she could lose the place and didn’t have the money to buy it from this lord, whoever he was. The lord represented by the black-clad solicitor who had looked at Pen holding a wheelbarrow of dung and called him filth, because of the work he did and the poor appearance of his clothing, when he knew nothing of Pen himself.

Of course, Pen knew nothing of himself, either, but the man’s insult had burrowed deep. It was unfair and it was untrue. He hoped, in his real life, he was a better judge of character and didn’t dismiss people by sight.

But some deep, lurking fear told him he hadn’t been any better. Some evil came roaring out of him at night, in his dreams—it had to be evil, to have such a terrifying grip on him. And he had a sense, a knowing that came with the bloody torments of his dreams, that he too had been in a position like Gwen’s, torn apart body and soul, hanging to life by a thread. And instead of rising and pulling himself together, building something that could shelter himself and others, he had chosen a path of self-destruction and selfish absorption, if not outright cruelty.

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