Claire Delacroix Read Online Free Page A

the left and the right, their hair bedecked with ribbons. New garments for this very day, Luc concluded, disgusted with the cavalier waste of hard coin.
    “The lady Brianna,” bellowed the steward, “Princess of Tullymullagh!”
    With that, the most beautiful woman Luc had ever seen stepped through the portal into the hall. The princess smiled shyly as she descended the stairs from the solar. She stepped on to the dais with the grace of a swan, and Luc’s protesting thoughts screamed to a halt.
    Luc stared, for he could have done naught else.
    Brianna was the perfect, tiny fairy queen of Pyrs’ bedtime tales. Luc had never imagined that such beauty could exist outside of fanciful stories and was clutched with a desire so primal that it curled his toes.
    Indeed, the admiration flooding through Luc put his response to Tullymullagh to shame.
    Luc’s heart began to pound as he sought some flaw or hint that he had named her wrong. But nay. The lady Brianna’s face grew only more fair as he looked longer upon it. Her hands were as delicate as butterflies, her skin as creamy as new milk. Her smile was heart-wrenchingly innocent, her cheeks flushed slightly with attention of all fixed upon her. Her green surcoat was laced tightly at the sides and revealed her slender curves.
    Luc could imagine her curled up to sleep in a flower bud all too readily.
    She was not at all the woman he had anticipated.
    Luc swallowed and reminded himself that
this
was the selfish woman who would make them all do her bidding. No doubt her temperament was an unattractive one and her heart as dark as her face was fair. She would be selfish and indulged, slow of intellect. This was not a woman given to conversation or likely even one who would permit her loveliness to be marred by the rigors of childbirth.
    Even knowing that, Luc could not cease his staring.
    “She is a beauty,” he whispered in wonder, without even meaning to do so.
    “I suppose.” Burke shrugged with an indifference that Luc found hard to match. “But beauty is as beauty does.”
    Aye, ’twas much Luc’s own conclusion and reassuring to have Burke give the thought voice. He glanced at his brother. “But you will still wed her when she chooses you?”
    Burke flicked a telling look Luc’s way. “You presume much, Luc.”
    “Do not be so modest, Burke.” Rowan’s murmured comment barely carried to their ears. “If she has not the wits to make a sensible choice, no doubt there are those who will make the decision for her.”
    Rowan looked at Luc and that familiar roguish twinkleglinted in his dark eyes. “She will choose neither a farmer nor a bastard rogue, of that you may be certain,” the man continued. “Nay, Burke, ’twill be you burdened with the duty of deflowering this beauty.”
    The very thought made Luc’s heart clench in a most unexpected manner. What was wrong with him? Women never had such an effect upon him. Had he caught some ague upon the ship?
    That
would be another inconvenience to lay at this lady’s feet. Luc’s lips thinned grimly, and he looked back to the perfection of the princess. To his own surprise, annoyance toward his brother Burke stirred to life within him for the very first time in all his days.
    ’Twould be Burke who would meet this beauty at the altar; Burke who would bed her; Burke who would look upon her lovely face for the rest of her days. It did not seem right that Burke did not appreciate her allure.
    As Luc would have done.
    That thought brought Luc up short. How could such senselessness invade his thoughts? He folded his arms across his chest and glared at the lovely noblewoman, deeming her responsible for addling his wits.
    Brianna looked over to the brothers with open curiosity. She would not even glance at him, Luc well knew. Aye, she would weigh her choices by their outward appearance, caring naught for the inner man. ’Twould be Burke’s evident wealth and success that would draw her eye, Luc knew it.
    What he did not