Read Online Lyon's Gift by Tanya Anne Crosby - Free Book Online

limbs. “I’m no bluidy thief! You’re the bluidy thieves! You’re the ones who’ve robbed
everything but the teeth from my brothers’ mouths!”
    He had nothing to say in his own defense, Meghan
noticed. Instead he turned to Montgomerie.
    “ What in God’s name are you
thinking, Lyon?”
    Montgomerie had remained entirely too silent during
their furious exchange, Meghan realized suddenly, and turned to
face him, only to find him grinning at her.
    “ I’m thinking the two of you are
going to need keepers, is what I’m thinking.” His blue eyes
twinkled with mirth.
    Meghan blinked at their brilliance.
    Och, but up close, his eyes were bluer, even, than
her brother Colin’s, and as luminous as sapphires.
    “ You cannot be
serious?”
    “ Why not?” he answered, grinning
still.
    Meghan couldn’t begin to conceive what he could
possibly find so amusing just now. “You cannot simply wed with
someone against her will,” she apprised him as calmly as she was
able. He was making sport of her now, she realized.
    “ Of course I can,” he argued.
“’Tis quite commonly done.”
    Meghan stared at him in utter disbelief.
    “’ Tis the perfect solution, as
I’ve said.”
    “ Solution to what?” Meghan
answered, aghast, only to find herself with an echo once
more.
    Baldwin, the idiot, was still lying upon the ground,
staring up at his lord as though he thought him gone utterly mad.
“Solution to what?”
    “ To end the feuding, of course,”
Montgomerie replied. “I grow tired of sparring with
children.”
    Meghan screwed up her face in disbelief as she
turned toward him. “You cannot believe that forcing me to wed with
you will end the feuding, you daft mon! My brothers would sooner
see me a widow!”
    “ You want to end the feud, Lyon?”
Baldwin sounded nonplussed by the notion. “But I
thought—”
    “ I’ve changed my mind!”
Montgomerie replied. “Get your arse up, Baldwin!”
    “ You’ve changed your mind?” Meghan
repeated, apprehension rearing.
    She peered from one man to the other, not liking
what it was she was hearing.
    “ What do you mean you’ve changed your mind ?” She narrowed her gaze at
Lyon.
    “ Nothing less, nothing more.
Simply that... I’ve changed my mind, wench.”
    Meghan went wholly still before him.
    The bloody wretch!
    “ You mean to tell me you only now
have suddenly decided you no longer wish to feud with my
brothers?”
    “ Something like that.”
    “ Why?”
    He had the decency at least to appear a little
chagrined by her question.
    He might have said she looked like a cow, and she
wouldn’t have taken such offense! He could have told her she was
mad as a loon, and she might have bloody well agreed! He should
have admitted to anything but this, because Meghan was suddenly
insanely furious!
    She inhaled a breath, and said when her temper was
restrained enough to speak, “Let me be certain I have this right,
Sassenach!”
    He tightened his hold upon her waist, seeming to
sense her rising fury, but answered calmly. “Certainly.”
    “ You did not mind the feud
before?”
    “ Not particularly.”
    “ But now you do?”
    “ Aye.”
    “ And you wish to end it. Why?” she
demanded once more.
    He cocked his head, offering a waggish smile. “For
the good of Scotia,” he answered evenly.
    “ I see.” Meghan gritted her teeth,
restraining herself, though barely. “And when did it occur to you
to be so blessed noble?” She narrowed her gaze at him, casting
daggers with her eyes.
    His brows lifted. “Sudden inspiration, shall we
say?”
    Meghan lost her composure at that. She twisted
wrathfully within his embrace, trying to little avail to free
herself. If he wouldn’t let her go, she was going to see both of
them toppled off his mount to the ground! “My sweet Minnie said you
were all wolves, and you are! Ravenous, gluttonous wolves!” she
raged, maddened at feeling so helpless against his greater strength
and unwelcomed good humor. “I’ll not wed