If You Dare Read Online Free PDF Page B

think of Scots before we came here?”
    She frowned, appearing genuinely confused. “I didn’t think of Scots.”
    He scowled at that. “And now?”
    â€œNow that you’ve come, you’ve shown yourself to be the epitome of all I’ve heard.”
    He waved her on with his cast.
    She crossed her arms over her chest and took a breath.“Violence surrounds you, as shown by your beating, but also by the gashes on your fingers. I’d wondered how you could receive such a peculiar injury, then concluded you’d cut them on someone’s teeth when you hit him in the face.”
    Court nodded, extremely impressed. That was exactly what had happened. He nearly smiled remembering the satisfaction of splitting the Spaniard’s lips, of the blood he’d spat for at least an hour afterward. . . .
    â€œYou have a history of it as demonstrated by the scars covering you. I’d heard that your people live in bands—”
    â€œClans,” he grated. “They’re called clans.”
    She shrugged. “And that these clans fight with each other constantly because you are a bloodthirsty people more concerned with warring than with culture or refinement.” He noticed she’d begun pressing one finger after another against her crossed arms as she ticked off points. “You are mannerless. Your halfhearted gratitude to me for saving your life bespeaks a sense of entitlement—”
    â€œIt bespeaks lack of practice in being beholden.”
    She raised her eyebrows in an expression that said if he continued to talk, she would cease. “You look like a black-guard. Except when you are angry. Then you look like a brute that could readily kill me. Your insulting me that first day was hurtful and uncalled for. I’ve heard it’s that way with your people—a complete lack of delicacy. There’s little thought behind your eyes. . . .”
    â€œI’ve heard enough,” he snapped when she appeared to be just gathering steam. Many held these misimpressions, and he and his men played on them with the stories they spread, but to hear them voiced back to him by an Andorran? . . . Scots were a thousand times prouder and more accomplished than these medieval crag-of-a-country people cut off from the changing world.
    She blinked as if taken aback by his seething tone, thenturned to walk out, tossing over her shoulder, “Indeed, your vocation may be the least of your failings.”
    Damn it, I wasn’t finished talking to you. . . .
    Though the movement pained him, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. She gave a startled cry, snatching her hand from his. It flew to her mouth, but he still heard her hiss in Catalan, “Bèstia,” before she dashed out the doorway.
    Court knew Catalan fairly well, and he definitely knew the word for beast; he’d been called it the first day his cadre had arrived and had heard it in whispers daily thereafter.
    She had to try the key several times before getting it into the lock. He’d shaken her. Unfortunately, Court knew he looked like a beast. He’d studied his reflection this morning, imagining how this woman might see him.
    And winced.
    The vessels in both eyes had exploded, so the whites were red. The right side of his face was still mottled black and blue, and his normally squared jaw looked even more so with the swelling and with a week’s worth of beard highlighting it. She was highborn to her toes—she’d probably never seen a man in this condition before.
    Just now, when she’d peered at him as she might at something on the bottom of her boot, he’d felt like a barbarian, like the animal she’d called him. He was beginning to despise her condescending tone and her sharp looks of disgust, even as he struggled to comprehend why he could possibly mind enough to be bothered by either.
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    Today had