Love's Savage Bonds Read Online Free Page B

far less reassured about his intentions, a fear that intensified
when she felt his huge hand once more at her breast. She screamed feebly into
the gag, but choked off the cry as she felt his fingers press against her
breastbone, and she was pushed down onto the bed.
     
    “Lie still, or by heaven, I'll leash
you about the neck.” She felt him wrap some sort of cord about her ankles, and
felt it jerk as, presumably, he tied it to the foot of the bed. That a
determined effort might allow her to find that cord with her bound hands, and
release her feet was probable... but it was equally true that Catherine had
neither the strength nor the courage to try. Both had been drained from her.
     
    His scent was powerful in her nostrils,
as was the pungent tang of her own fear. Was he watching her, sitting across
the room, regarding her as some form of booty? Was she a pawn in some game
between himself and his brother? To go from noblewoman-by-marriage to bound and
gagged prisoner: it was a transformation as profound as that which had taken
her from Catherine Tompkins to Lady Catherine Redmond.
     
    Though she tried desperately to cling
to what she had known as the truth, that she was the wife of Philip Redmond,
and would be seen safe and home once more, it was harder and harder to think of
anything as a certainty. She was well and truly helpless, and in a way not
completely due to the cords at her wrists and ankles.
     
    As Catherine fell into an exhausted
sleep, she was left with only one certainty: whatever else Charles Redmond
might think of her, he viewed her very much as a woman, not just a pawn, and
she wondered if his resistance to temptation would hold in the light of day,
with her so clearly at his mercy.
     
    And if it did not…?

Chapter Three
     
     
    Light gently caressed at Catherine’s eyes.
She blinked, noticing that her night of uneasy sleep had disturbed the
blindfold enough to get a better picture of her surroundings.
     
    She was lying upon a simple cot, in the
rough crofter's cottage. The furnishings were spare, but tidy, as though the
place were usually unoccupied, but kept in good repair against it being needed
one day.
     
    Catherine's muscles ached. While a
night spent bound, gagged, and blindfolded had certainly been preferable to the
violation she had feared was to be her fate, she had never been able to find a
position that was even reasonably comfortable, her pinioned limbs screaming
silent protest against their treatment. Though the gag had not completely
stifled her breathing, neither had it made it easier.
     
    Exhausted though she was, she was
equally determined not to let her abductor have an advantage over her. She
struggled to a sitting position, and was continuing to try to glean anything
useful from what she could see of her surroundings, when she heard the door to
the cottage open.
     
    At the sound, she turned as best she
could in its direction: Charles Redmond was closing the door to the outside,
his arms laden with some freshly-picked fruit and a small brown jug.
     
    He turned to face Catherine, and from
the look on his face, she could see that he'd expected to find her still
asleep. He seemed to flush slightly, as he glanced from the food to his
captive.
     
    “You'll not starve at my hands,” he
grunted, seeming almost abashed. He set down his burden, took a large red
apple, and polished it absently on the front of his coat. He stepped over to
the bed, and reached his huge hand to Catherine's face. The terrified girl
flinched, but his fingers slid under the cloth that bound her mouth and slipped
it down.
     
    “I daresay you're clever enough not to
scream. We're miles from anyone.” He held out the apple.
     
    “And the serpent tempted Eve,”
Catherine managed to croak out, glaring defiantly.
     
    For a moment, she saw the dark face
redden... then break into a smile—something she'd not have imagined Charles
Redmond capable of.
     
    “But remember,”  his voice rumbled,