Read Online The Rose Red Bride JK2 by Claire Delacroix - Free Book Online

offered his left hand, crossing it over the right one then turning up his palm, Vivienne pretended to reach toward it. Then she reached quickly for his hood, so quickly that he barely seized her hand in time.
    “I would see your eyes while you make such a vow,” she protested. “No man of merit fears as much.”
    “You will not look upon me.”
    “Whyever not?”
    “Because I forbid it,” he said, his tone allowing no argument.
    Vivienne chose to argue despite this. “You might be an outlaw, or a man whose repute I know well,” she said. “You might be a man who has assailed me in the past, or a man I loathe.”
    “I assure you that I am none of these.”
    “Your word will not suffice. You cannot expect so much of me in exchange for so little.” Vivienne sensed his hesitation and took advantage of it, pulling her hand from his and snapping back his hood with haste.
    He stared at her, his expression impassive, his eyes an uncanny blue.
    To her relief, he was a stranger, not some fiend whose advances she had spurned before. She supposed she should not be so relieved to have his name remain a mystery to her, but his steady gaze instilled confidence in her.
    His scarred face should have done the opposite. His hood hung around his neck like a cowl, leaving his features bare. The early sunlight caught the puckered flesh of a scar. That marring line began at his temple, compelling the end of his brow to tilt upward, narrowly missing the corner of his eye, slashed across his cheek, tugged at the corner of his mouth, then ended in the midst of his chin, perhaps deepening a dimple that had always been there.
    Vivienne was haunted by a feeling that he was vaguely familiar, as if she had met some of his kin before, but even that sense was far from strong.
    He did not so much as blink as she surveyed this wound, and she sensed that he expected her to recoil in horror. Vivienne granted the injury a leisurely perusal, then met his gaze unswervingly once she had seen the whole of it. She savored her conviction that he was surprised by her response.
    “You thought that I would reject you on the basis of this injury alone,” she charged softly. “But I have wits enough to know that a man’s face is not the measure of his worth.”
    He stared at her for a long moment, either incredulous or skeptical. His eyes became a more vehement blue and Vivienne wondered what he was thinking. She was keenly aware of his hand closed protectively around her own and swallowed when he captured her other hand once more. His thumb moved across her flesh in a slow caress, though she could not have said whether he did as much apurpose or not. The tower chamber seemed to warm around her.
    Even his presence changed the air, even the sound of his breath made Vivienne’s flesh tingle. She was aware of him as she had never been aware of another person in all her days. His steady regard softened her resistance to him in a most troubling way.
    “Then what is the measure of a man?”
    “His deeds,” she said softly. “Though yours show little merit this morn.”
    A shadow touched his eyes and she knew that she did not imagine that his expression darkened for a moment. “Then let this be a better deed.” He clasped her hands with gentle resolve, then met her gaze so steadily that she could not look away. “And so I swear to you, Vivienne Lammergeier, that I shall treat you with all honor for a year and a day, that I will defend you and honor you, that any children you bear me will be raised as my own, that at the end of that year and a day we both shall have the choice of whether to remain together or nay.”
    He loosed her right hand and his fingertips landed upon her cheek. They were warm, his touch as light as that of a butterfly upon a flower. Vivienne found herself turning, so that her lips touched his palm, found herself seduced anew by the reverence in his touch. His fingertips eased over the curve of her cheek, across her bottom lip, then he