Bride of the Beast Read Online Free PDF Page B

brown one, seemed a look of honest compassion and warmth. And, much to her surprise, the touch of his calloused hand as he lifted hers to his lips for a kiss, proved not entirely unpleasant.
    Ne'er had a man touched her in such a courtly manner. For truth, he held her hand with so much tenderness, Caterine suspected he feared she might shatter beneath his fingers.
    "Fair lady," he began, his English-accented voice instantly banishing the faint fluttery feeling his gallantry had stirred inside her. "Allow me to introduce myself," he addressed her in fluid Gaelic, perfect save the coloration of the Sassunach speech of his mother tongue.
    "I am Sir Marmaduke Strongbow, soon of Balkenzie Castle in the west, come from your sister, the lady Linnet, to champion you."
    "You are English." The words came out sharp and cold, colder than she'd intended.
    At once, the knight released her hand and stood. He inclined his head. "Yes, my lady, I am of English blood, but my heart beats only for Scotland. You have no cause to fear me."
    "I do not fear the English." Caterine gathered her skirts for a swift retreat. "I revile them," she said, then whipped around and sailed toward the stairs, her little dog, Leo, fast on her heels.
    She mounted the steps two at a time, desperate to put the massive oaken door and the hall's thick walling between herself and the Sassunach knight her sister had had the ill-sense to send her.
    Unfortunately, it was not as easy to run from the disturbing flare of raw and needy emotions his gallantry had breathed to life deep inside her.
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    hours later, caterine sat in stiff-lipped silence at Dun-laidir's high table and tried hard to ignore her keen awareness of him. Even without looking directly at him, simply knowing him beneath her roof sent a strange warmth tingling through her.
    Pretending indifference, she smoothed her fingers along the edge of the heavily scarred table. Torchlight fell across her late husband's elaborately carved great chair, calling conspicuous attention to the chair's emptiness.
    And the gravity of her plight.
    "Are you troubled by his scar?" Rhona's softly spoken words cut through the quiet.
    With a start, Caterine snatched her hand from the deep knife scorings she'd been tracing with idle fingers. A silly occupation chosen solely to keep from sneaking covert glances at him.
    She met her friend's probing gaze. "Think you I am so shallow?"
    Rhona ran a slow finger around the rim of her wine chalice. "Nay, though the frozen-faced expression you've worn since he entered the hall gives me cause to wonder."
    Annoyance, hot and tight, coiled in Caterine's breast. "You should know what it is about him that aggrieves me."
    "There is more to a man than the width of his shoulders and the charm of his smile. Your own words, my lady," Rhona reminded her. "Mayhap there is also more to a man than his blood? He did come to champion you."
    "He is English."
    "He was sent by your sister."
    Something snapped inside Caterine. "Then he holds Linnet in such thrall she's forgotten why I would never welcome an Englishman into my home."
    Rhona's expression softened. "I doubt she's forgotten, though I wish you would." Reaching across the table, she pressed Caterine's hand. "This man is no craven. I cannot see him hurrahing over the land raping innocents and dirking men before their wives' eyes. Truth to tell, he seems quite the gallant."
    "An English gallant."
    "You cannot blame him for the villainy of others, what was done to you years ago and by—"
    "English soldiers, and more of them than I could count," Caterine finished for her, steeling her back against a deep-seated shame still as laming as the long-ago day she'd been so violated.
    Half-turning in her chair, she pretended to study the nearby hearth fire. Anything but peer across the table and see sympathy in Rhona's eyes. Instead, she risked a glance at the broad-shouldered English knight. He sat at a table on the far side of