Claiming Read Online Free

father. His sudden passing must have been a shock to you.”
    Rowena glanced at his face but found him to be serious and turned away sharply, narrowing her eyes as if she was looking for someone, trying to cover the swell of mixed emotions his words evoked.
    She cleared her throat. “Indeed. I had imagined he would live a long life. But ’twas not to be.”
    She felt his eyes suddenly upon her and wondered for a moment if he could detect the pain that gave a slight tremor to her words. But he couldn’t have done, for he looked away just as quickly.
    “You were his great companion, I understand.”
    She hesitated before she spoke, as her mind turned back to her beloved father. “Yes, we enjoyed each other’s company. I gave him due respect and love and he gave me free rein around the estate and castle.” She bit her lip as she felt the pain in her heart that her father’s passing had left. She cleared her throat and blinked. “The fire is exceptionally smoky tonight.” She signalled to an attendant to add more wood. Although it was summer, the nights were chill and the Hall was large.
    “Free rein? I think not. While he was alive to watch over you, you had your supposed freedom. But he knew, full well, that you and the estates needed protection after his death. And you must have known, too, that your father would choose a husband for you.”
    She shook her head. “He tried once or twice, of course, but I refused.” She shrugged. “I have no interest in men.”
    “Now that , I do not believe. Maybe you were put off men for one reason or another, but I do not believe you had no interest.” His eyes narrowed. “You have passion in your eyes. I can feel it, I can see it. What went wrong?”
    How could he have guessed so accurately? A vision of the young man who had stolen her heart and her virginity flashed into her mind. She’d been fifteen—too young, too impetuous and too easily fooled by a few flirtatious words and flattery. Another woman—older and wealthier than she—had beckoned to him and he’d gone. Sold to the highest bidder. She’d decided there and then that she would never again fall prey to the appetites of her body, appetites that had also been her mother’s downfall.
    She shrugged in what she hoped was a casual manner. “My past is none of your business.”
    “True. But I’d always found understanding people helped greatly in everything I do.”
    “Everything? You are a mercenary, are you not? So understanding people helped you to murder them?”
    “ Was a mercenary.”
    “You still are sir. You’ve sold your services to the highest bidder, as before. My lord father must have thought it a great joke, to match me up with you.” She didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
    “He knew that I could guard and protect you and his lands like no other man could.”
    “Strange form of protection—gifting my life to a stranger.”
    “Better than gifting to you a life of certain defeat and ignominy.”
    She placed her wine goblet carefully on the table, trying not to spill the ruby liquid, trying not to reveal the fact that she feared he spoke the truth. “Nothing is certain, my lord. Not defeat, not ignominy. Only death.”
    “Come now. You are too young and beautiful to contemplate death.”
    She glanced at the rapidly reducing wine flagon. “The wine is obviously addling your eyes and brains. I am too old to be considered young.”
    “You consider twenty-one years of age, old?”
    “You know it is. All my friends were married by the time they were eighteen, or earlier. And, as to your other point, I have too healthy a complexion and body to be considered beautiful.”
    His eyes travelled leisurely down her curves. She met his gaze with a narrowed one of her own. “I see nought to complain about.”
    She leaned toward him, as if to speak confidentially. “How ill you are at the gentle art of wooing, my lord. Because, even to me, unused to such talk, ‘nought to