Read Online The O'Madden: A Novella (The Celtic Legends Series) by Lisa Ann Verge - Free Book Online

he’d wanted to be since he first saw her the day he arrived:  Alone in his bedroom with Maeve.
    “Don’t be standing there as dull as a cow,” she said, sifting something into the water. “The bath won’t stay hot forever.”
    He raised a brow at her. It was custom for the woman of the house to bathe any visitors, but that was a privilege Maeve had dodged from the start. What mischief she was up to, lingering about over his bath and ordering him in?
    She said, “Are you going to stand there staring at me until I grow old and withered? It’s not as if I haven’t seen you without your braies.”
    Her cheeks went dark then, flushing as they did when he teased her in the yard or across the trestle-table as she served him food, and finally he found himself on surer ground . “A bath is welcome.”
    “No doubt it is, with the way you’re wearing yourself out.”
    “I’ve worked harder than this for the taste of bread.”
    “You should hire some of the villagers to do this work.” She tossed a vial back into the basket. “They’d welcome the pay, and their labor wouldn’t cost more than a few calves come slaughter-time.”
    “Is that all?”
    “If I told you that price was generous,” she said, finally raising her face to his, “you wouldn’t know if I spoke the truth, would you?”
    He set to the ties of his tunic as he let a smile slip across his lips. “I have to put my trust in you.”
    “It’s a fool who trusts an enemy.”
    “You’re no enemy.”
    He’d spoken softly but she turned her face away anyway, hiding her expression once again in the shadows. She might be ashamed of the truth, but he had spoken plainly. She ran the estate with a strong and even hand. All the servants looked to her for guidance. And though she proclaimed she hated his English blood and wanted to drive him off, not once had he seen her do anything to harm him or the manor.
    He set to his belt and tossed it across the bed. “Hire some good men, then. I need several to help me mend the roof.”
    “You know that it won’t make any difference.” She startled as his belt slid off the bed and clattered to the floor. “All your work— it’s futile.”
    “There’s nothing futile about a good, strong roof.”
    “The curse won’t go away by you fixing things,” she argued, her eyes widening as he pulled his tunic off his back. “The milk will still come out green, the eggs blue, the butter won’t come in the churn, and oatcakes will still burn in a cold pan. Bought loyalty never lasts.”
    “Bought loyalty?”  He rolled the tunic in his hands. Caked mud flaked onto the reeds. “Is that what you think I did today?”
    “I think t hat was a foolish thing you did today.” She planted the basket at her feet and crossed her arms. “With the cows giving green milk and the hens laying eggs we can’t eat, how are we going to survive over the winter? You have servants to feed, and yourself, and the livestock, as well. Did you think of that, when you so blithely refused the tribute?”
    He tossed the tunic on the bed and frowned. He hadn’t even considered that. Perhaps he’d condemned the people of this castle to a season of starvation with an unwitting act of foolish generosity.
    Hell. What did he know of running an estate? He knew how to thatch a roof, how to mend a fence, how to heft the bales of hay so they fit tigh tly amid the rafters of the barn. But he didn’t know a damned thing about raising cattle or feeding two dozen servants over the winter. He swept his gaze over her, over that cloud of dark hair and those pale, fine-boned features, and wondered why she didn’t just marry him so he could let her run the place as she’d obviously done all these years.
    “ There are cattle on those slopes.” He sat on the end of the bed and nudged off his boots. “They’re mine, aren’t they? And the sheep?”
    “You’ve got a healthy herd for a lordship of this size.”
    “ The time must come when we have to