Read Online Knight of Love by Catherine LaRoche - Free Book Online Page B

blood streaming down his face on his ride in, nor with his ongoing insistence on this notion of their marriage . But somehow not threatening in the same way Kurt was.
    And somehow intriguing.
    He stood as well, and carefully pushed in his chair. “I ask your permission for a kiss, to prove a point and move us forward in this conversation.” When she didn’t reply, he added mildly, “You don’t, I assume, prefer that I give you to the men?”
    She recoiled sharply. “Don’t even say such a thing!” she commanded. “You wouldn’t do it, and it is beneath you to make such a threat.”
    He paused, mouth tightening. “No, I wouldn’t do it. But I must warn you, Lenora, that this is not a pretty English drawing room. Choices, for both of us, are severely constrained. Germany is a battlefield from east to west.” He stepped up to her. “I am convinced the best way to keep you safe is to make you my wife. I want to show you what that would mean.”
    She didn’t care for these tactics. “I assure you, my lord, I’m not quite so naive or sheltered as to have remained ignorant on that point to the age of twenty-eight.”
    His lips curled. “Such a proud beauty you are, Lenora. And such a fighter. You know in your head. Your body knows the worst of it. But I think you know nothing of the good.”
    She snorted. “ The good —bah! A man’s convenient fiction.”
    He lifted a hand to stroke her hair. He didn’t have to lift it far; her head came up barely to his shoulders. “Have you attained the advanced age of twenty-eight without ever enjoying a sweetheart’s kiss? Has a stolen embrace never warmed your blood?”
    He continued to smooth back the loose tendrils of her braid as he spoke. She knew what he was about. She’d gentled many a skittish horse herself. She didn’t want it to work, but was forced to admit his hands felt soothing stroking down the side of her head.
    His big hands.
    She swallowed hard and tried to step away.
    â€œNo, Liebling, stay with me,” he cajoled.
    She squeaked as he suddenly picked her up, easily as a doll, and sat down on the cot with her on his lap. His arms held her in place. Imprisoned? Supported? Heat radiated from his body along with a spicy male aroma—not his soap or linen, but him : ocean breeze, nighttime forest, how to describe this musky male scent? She had to admit, his embrace, his being , felt nothing like that of Kurt.
    Perhaps it might be interesting—educational, even—to experience his kiss.
    She leveled an imperious stare at him. How would her mother put it? “Very well, then. I grant my consent. You may proceed, at my direction: one kiss, on the cheek, and you will stop immediately upon my command. I warn you, however; it will prove nothing,” she said airily.
    He arched a thick brow. “Ah, my lady throws down a gauntlet.” He picked up her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles.
    A shiver rippled down her back at his caress, and she pulled away. He released her slowly, with a last touch of his lips to her hand.
    â€œI challenge you in return, then,” he said, “to one similar kiss from you, on my cheek, after I kiss you.”
    A sudden hitch in her chest interfered with speech, so she merely nodded. Kisses from a lover were few and far between in her life. Kurt, thank God, had rarely shown interest in such an embrace—perhaps it reeked too much of real affection or intimacy. Back in England, other suitors had tried for kisses in ballroom alcoves or during morning rides, but she’d never had much interest in men or romance. Learning to run the estate households or joining her mother in charity work for the London Ladies’ Society of Love had always proved more compelling.
    This man, however, compelled in a different way. He didn’t fill her with loathing, as Kurt did. And although she couldn’t be