Read Online Bride for a Knight by Sue-Ellen Welfonder - Free Book Online Page A

to you, my lady. Dinna you think to doubt it, for I have ne’er spoken truer words,” he said, his voice soft and low, the warmth of his fingers spilling all through her.
    “You don’t even know me,” Aveline couldn’t help but protest, his touch unsettling her. “And I do not know you. We have ne’er even seen each other before this day. We—”
    “We both know that isn’t true,” he said, his fingers tightening ever so slightly on her shoulder. “I
do
want you.”
    Aveline’s breath caught, his words setting her heart to fluttering for he’d dipped his head to her ear and spoken them just for her.
    Equally pleasing, he kept his hand on her shoulder in a reassuring way, his touch more welcome and pleasurable than she would have believed. Especially when his thumb began moving in ever so light circles up and down the side of her neck, each tender caress soothing and melting her.
    “Hah!” Alan Mor slapped the monk’s back with a resounding whack. “Will you look at that?” he cried, his mirth scarce contained. “I coulda searched miles through the rock and heather to find the best husband for my wee lassie and here’s my arch-fiend’s youngest, smitten as the day is long!”
    He rocked back on his heels, his face splitting in a grin. “Suffering saints! And to think the girl doubted me!”
    “There is e’er reason to doubt you,” Aveline grumbled beneath her breath, watching her da’s mummery with suspicion.
    But she couldn’t deny that he appeared genuinely pleased.
    And like as not, he was. Even if his reasons would be his own self-serving ones and not his professed concern for Munro Macpherson and that one’s well-doing.
    To be sure, he didn’t care a jot if Laird Macpherson’s strapping son found favor with her or nay.
    Even less that she thought he was the most powerfully handsome man she’d e’er set eyes upon. His great size and similarity of feature revealed his kinship to his brothers, but she was quite sure he’d top even Neill by an inch or more were they to stand side by side.
    His shoulders looked wider, too. Definitely more impressively muscled. And though Neill had been a pleasure for any lass to rest her eyes upon, he’d worn his pride and station like a crown and Aveline had ne’er felt wholly at ease beneath his stern, sometimes arrogant stares.
    No matter that Sorcha e’er insisted there hadn’t been a vainglorious bone in his undeniably comely body.
    But
this
Macpherson had his clan’s far-famed looks and a good heart. That, she could already tell. It’d been especially apparent in the way his voice had softened when he’d spoken of his mother. And she’d seen it, too, in his readiness to comfort her.
    She suspected he had a dimple, too. Something she’d watch for as soon as he ceased frowning at her father and Brother Baldric.
    And, saints preserve her, but she was certain she’d also caught glimpses of glistening, coppery-colored chest hair at the neck opening of his tunic.
    Aveline moistened her lips, the notion exciting her. Would such hairs prove as soft and glossy as they’d looked? Or would she find them wiry and crisp?
    That she even wanted to know astounded her.
    As did the tingling warmth that spooled through her the longer she thought about such things. Aye, she decided, watching him, he was the finest, most magnificent man she’d ever seen.
    And the most valiant from what she could tell.
    Proving it, he stepped forward and took the two rings from the table, lifting them in the air. “Let it be known that this betrothal ceremony is both binding and desired,” he said, raising his voice so all could hear.
    Saying the words before his good sense kicked in and sent him hastening from the hall to seek a bride not burdened by a sire he knew to be more slippery than an eel.
    Instead, he cleared his throat and concentrated only on her beautiful sapphire eyes, the scent of summer violets.
    “I, James of the Heather, take you, Aveline of Fairmaiden, as my