Read Online Twice Tempted by a Rogue by Tessa Dare - Free Book Online Page A

why the few lovers she’d taken since Maddox died were all travelers passing through. No risk of emotional attachment.
    Looking back, maybe that’s why she’d always been so drawn to Rhys. He was always in motion—running, riding, brawling, fighting his way across the Continent. He was a man who’d never allow anything to hold him in one place.
    Except now he was back, vowing to do just that—stay in one place.
    “He said he wants to rebuild Nethermoor Hall.” The words slipped out.
    With a violent curse, Gideon plunked down his tankard. “Why the devil would he want to do that? It’s worthless moorland up there.”
    “I know it, but Rhys said …” Her voice trailed off as she realized her slip.
    His eyes flashed. “Oh, Rhys said? On cozy terms with him, are you?”
    “Not like that,” she replied tartly. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
    “Damn right it is my business.” He lowered his voice. “My business . My livelihood. I can’t afford his presence here, Meredith. Neither can you. Ashworth’s already put me a day behind schedule. If he stays in the neighborhood, my trade is finished. If I can’t keep up my trade, you won’t have cheap stores for this inn. If the inn suffers, the whole village suffers. That man is nothing but trouble for Buckleigh-in-the-Moor.”
    “I know, I know.” She frowned, scrubbing at a water spot on the countertop that had been there for years and wasn’t likely to go away anytime soon. “And I tried to tell him as much, but …”
    She couldn’t complete that sentence. I tried to tell him as much, but he insisted it was destiny that I marry him .
    Mistaking her silence for genuine concern, Gideon stayed her wrist with his hand. “Don’t you worry. He won’t be in the village long. One way or another, I’ll see to it.”
    She nodded, knowing he would. And his protective touch was kind, she supposed, but it did nothing for her. Not like Rhys’s touch last night. She still felt that light caress tingling on her cheek.
    It feels right, doesn’t it?
    She shook herself.
    Gideon said, “If no man in the neighborhood will work for him, cart for him, or sell to him, he’ll be forced to give up soon enough. And if he doesn’t … well, there are other ways of convincing him.”
    “Like those torches this morning?”
    Cursing, he cocked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I meant ways that involve real men and real weapons. Not a pair of inbred apes and a simpleton stable boy with his water pail.”
    She pointedly ignored his mention of violence and weapons. “Speaking of Darryl, I’d best call him and Father to their noon meal.”
    “Can you call all the way to Nethermoor, then? Always knew you were a clear-spoken woman, but that would astonish even me.”
    “What do you mean? Darryl’s not up at Nethermoor. I just saw him, not ten minutes ago.”
    “Not Darryl. Your father.” He raised an eyebrow.
    “My father? Up at Nethermoor? What’s he doing up there?”
    Gideon shrugged and tipped his ale. “Better ask him that, hadn’t you? Or your friend Rhys . It’s the two of them up there together. My man just brought me the news.”
    Meredith put aside her rag.
    “Not that I mind. The Symmonds boys are loading the ponies as we speak. We’ll take them out toward Two Oaks and then around the long way. Ashworth and your father can stay out there all day, so far as I’m concerned.”
    “Not if I have something to say about it.” She jerked at her apron strings, her fingers clumsy with nerves. Her father should not be out on the moor in the midday sun. That sort of exertion could endanger his health.
    Gideon was right. Rhys’s presence here was nothing but trouble for them all. She would go tell Rhys St. Maur to let her father be, pack up all his silly proposals, and leave the village today. And then she would somehow excise him from her imagination and get on with her life.
    He had to move on, and so did she.

Chapter Five

    Straining under