Read Online The Bride of Larkspear by Sherry Thomas - Free Book Online Page B

tell it then.”
    Her eyes bore into mine. “Didn’t know how, or wouldn’t?”
    “Maybe both,” I admit.
    She shakes her head. And keeps shaking her head.
    I get up, find my dressing robe, and kiss her on her forehead. “Good night.”
    Her gaze follows me out the door.

Chapter Five

    T HE NEXT DAY I JOIN Grisham and my bride at play, showing up with a vulcanized rubber ball used for tennis. “Here. He likes this one.”
    “Thank you, my lord.” She takes the ball from my hand and sweeps me openly with a glance.
    Heat engulfs me. But beneath the warmth, I feel the cold finger of uncertainty. It is a terrifying sensation to be at her mercy—she who’s always had so little regard for me.
    She tosses the ball a good distance, her motion strong yet graceful. “Go get it, Grisham.”
    Grisham lopes off. He cannot run as fast as his four-legged peers, but run he most assuredly does, listing a little, and at a very respectable pace.
    She looks back at me. “Come to think of it, you never mentioned last night what Fidelia did with her bookshop after she married Prince Narcissus. Did she need to give it up, eventually?”
    I did not expect that particular question. My answer, however, comes readily, as if I’ve always known exactly what happened after the end of the story. “She did sell the shop. But then she went on to establish a national library, one with a collection that was astounding for both its breadth and depth.”
    She tilts her head, a slight curve to her lips. “Did she?”
    “Of course. And everyone, from princes to paupers, was welcome in her library. But she did not stop there. She used her influence to foster a culture of reading in Pride, so that when the country celebrated the golden jubilee of her husband’s rule, there were many more bookshops in the capital than there had been when she’d dealt with books for a living.”
    Grisham is back, the rubber ball held happily between his teeth. She rubs him on the head, takes the ball, and tosses it again.
    Her attention returns to me. “You have interesting views of what a woman is capable of, Larkspear.”
    “I am not afraid of who you are, Lady Larkspear.”
    I am only afraid that she might crush my heart underfoot.
    Her eyes gleam. “Really? Don’t you know that such a statement all but begs to be tested?”
    My stomach tightens. “Then test me.”
    She pulls down the brim of her hat and glances at me sideways. “I intend to. Most assuredly.”

    T HAT EVENING, BEFORE MY VALET has even left, she walks through the connecting door into my bedroom, clad in a black dressing robe embroidered with a green-and-gold Chinese dragon at the hem. Around her neck, draped like scarves, are several of the sashes I’ve used to tie her to her bed—red, blue, green, all eye-poppingly bright against the black silk of the dressing gown.
    The restraints are coming back. For me.
    My stomach drops even as my cock rises.
    “Thank you, Matthews,” she addresses my valet. “I’m sure I can see to any further needs on Lord Larkspear’s part.”
    Her words are perfectly appropriate, but the proprietary look she casts my way…Matthews, that most phlegmatic of men, hurries out with a blush on his face.
    Quite unsubtly, she locks the door behind him.
    My mouth turns dry. “So, my lioness leaves her cage.”
    She smiles with a wolfish flash of her teeth. “It is lovely to be back in the wild, prowling and scenting prey.”
    “And the hunter becomes the hunted?”
    “It’s only fair, isn’t it, that everyone gets a chance?” She draws the sash from her dressing robe.
    I try not to stare too obviously at what the now-gaping robe reveals, but it is not easy, given that she
intends
me to look. Indeed to gawk at the swell of her breasts, the dip of her navel, and the red curls that mark the very center of my life.
    “Take off your shirt, darling.” There is not an iota of hesitation to her voice. She is in her element. In command.
    The last time she called me