Wild Conquest. Hannah Howell

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СКАЧАТЬ and knew it was not from the heat of the late July afternoon. It had been four hours since her parents had ordered her to set Master Tearlach O’Duine aside, and she had spent every minute trying to think of a way to please both her family and herself. There did not seem to be one.

      Tall, lean, and dark, Tearlach O’Duine was a fine figure of a man. His snug black breeches and hose revealed long, smoothly muscled, and well-shaped legs. His black coat and silver-and-black waistcoat fit tightly over broad shoulders and a flat stomach. She liked the way the white lace at his cuffs and throat enhanced his sun-bronzed complexion. But when he stopped before her, lifted her hand to his lips; and brushed a kiss over her knuckles, she was torn between wanting to weep and the urge to run away. As she met his smoky gray eyes, she wondered how she could bear to reject him for herself, let alone send him into Letitia’s arms.

      “Please sit down, Master O’Duine,” she said, and indicated a place on the bench beside her.

      “Master O’Duine?” he murmured as he seated himself. “You called me Tearlach but yestereve.”

      “In a moment of ill-advised forwardness. ’Tis hardly proper of me to address you with such indecent familiarity.”

      “I had hopes that ye would be addressing me with far more familiarity soon.” He took her small hand in his and frowned when she tensed. “Mayhaps I go too quickly for ye. I have had little experience at courting a weel-bred lassie.”

      “You do it with great charm and skill. I have no complaint at all.” Pleasance inwardly grimaced, for she knew she sounded as haughty and disdainful as her mother, but it was the only way she knew how to mouth the words her family was forcing her to say.

      “Nay? Then why have ye become so cool and distant?”

      Tearlach watched her look away, then shade her blue-green eyes from his inspection with partially lowered lids, her long dark lashes a perfect shield. Every instinct he had honed as a trapper was now telling him that something was very wrong. This was not the shy yet warm Pleasance he had first been attracted to. She was nervous, tense, even secretive. There was a cool, haughty tone to her voice that irritated him. Something had changed her, and in a way that he felt could only work against him. In fact, he was getting the alarming impression that he was about to be turned away, and he simply could not understand why. He began to grow defensive.

      “I do not mean to act differently toward you, Master O’Duine.” Pleasance sighed and twisted her handkerchief. “You have been most gallant, and I have no wish to repay that with unkindness.”

      “The more mealymouthed and polite ye become, the less I like it.”

      Tearlach rose to his feet and began to pace back and forth in front of her. Pleasance cursed silently. The man was too astute. She had hoped to dim his interest by acting cool and aloof, so that he ended this courtship on his own. Instead he had already surmised her intention. He was not going to play along and let her do what she must with gentle subterfuge. That meant that she would have to lie, for she could not tell the man that her parents had ordered her to give him to Letitia.

      She did not want him to know that she was so weak as to obey such an absurd command just to please her family. There had to be a point where family loyalty ended, where meekly obeying every command became akin to slavery. She feared that her need to please her constantly critical parents was beginning to make her act the fool.

      She cringed slightly when he stopped to stare at her. Then, suddenly, she was angry with him. If she had not met him, if he had not touched her emotions in a way no other man ever had, she would not be in this awkward situation now. A small inner voice told her she was being grossly unfair, even a little ridiculous, but it did not soothe her temper. If he had acted like all the other men before him and pursued the beautiful Letitia, she could have remained blissfully ignorant of the pain, loss, and confusion she was suffering now.

      “Some of us, Master O’Duine, have been trained in civility to others.” Pleasance did not need to see the way his eyes narrowed or the light flush that tinged his high-boned cheeks to know that she had spoken coldly and sharply.

      “Something has happened between yesterday and now. When I brought ye a few posies yesterday and we sat right here and talked, ye were all smiles. Ye called me Tearlach and e’en allowed me a kiss. Aye, more than one.”

      “I acted without thought as to how you might interpret my behavior or even to the propriety of it. If I led you to believe my acquiescence indicated more than mere flirtatiousness, I sincerely apologize.”

      He flushed deeper with fury. “Ye are turning me away, shoving me aside like some bothersome child.” He grabbed her by the arm and tugged her to her feet. “Ye have played me for a fool, havenae ye?”

      “Nay, I have not! It is my right to decide to end the courtship when and if I see fit. There is no sense in wasting your time or mine any further. After weeks of your skillful and arduous courting I simply do not have the depth of feeling for you that I should have by now.”

      “No depth of feeling?”

      The moment the words were out of her mouth, Pleasance knew that she had made a big mistake. She could hear in his reply that he had interpreted her words as a blatant challenge to prove her wrong. She tensed as he pulled her into his arms.

      “Master O’Duine, release me. You can prove naught by failing to behave as a gentleman.”

      “I dinnae feel much like a gentleman at this moment. Aye, and ye have ne’er thought of me as one, have ye? That is what this is all about. Ye are as full of self-importance as the rest of your haughty family.”

      “You are mistaken.”

      “Nay, I think not. Ah, lassie, I really thought ye were one who would speak the truth.”

      “I have spoken the truth.” But Pleasance could hear the lack of conviction in her own voice. She was a poor liar and the faint sneer that twisted Tearlach’s fine mouth told her that he thought so too. “Now, release me or I shall have to call out for my father or my brother Lawrence,” she threatened, thinking even as she said it that the portly Thomas and his lanky dandy of a son would be no match for Tearlach.

      “And they will come hieing to your rescue, will they? I dinnae think so. Since the verra first day I came courting, they have left us to ourselves. I surmised that such a lax guardianship was because ye are a spinster.”

      Pleasance felt her temper flare. She was weary of being called a spinster, a term she knew was never used kindly. This was Tearlach O’Duine’s way of striking back at her.

      Before she could respond in kind, however, he tightened his hold on her. Despite her valiant efforts not to let his nearness affect her, she immediately forgot what she had wanted to say. Being pressed against his hard, lean body stole nearly every thought from her head. To her dismay, she could see that he knew exactly what effect he was having on her. A distracting, captivating warmth seeped through her at every place he touched. She knew she should pull away before he beguiled her, but all she wanted was to get nearer. He was holding her scandalously close, yet all she could think about was how she wished to act even more wantonly.

      He touched his lips to the hollow by her ear, and she, shivered as heat entered her veins, robbing her of all resistance. For a moment she almost hated him. He was showing her all too clearly what she would lose by rejecting him, and the realization was too painful for words.

      “Oh, aye, no depth of feeling, she says. Ye are too poor a liar СКАЧАТЬ