My Valiant Knight Read Online Free PDF Page A

recognized it for what it was—lust. Her body was responding to the proximity of his with alarming haste, greed, and ill judgement.
    She inwardly cursed. It was a poor time for her womanly desires to spring to life. Gabel de Amalville now held her prisoner. He had said that she would not be dishonored, but they had been speaking of rape. He had not sworn not to seduce her and, if he sensed her interest, he could well try and lure her to his bed. The feelings now running through her body told her that he could probably succeed. It would not taint his honor if she went to his bed willingly. Since she had never felt attracted to a man before, she did not know how to control the wanting she now suffered, and now was a very poor time to try and learn such lessons.
    A moment later she silently scolded herself for being vain. She had not spent very many moments of her life fighting off the unwanted attentions of men. There was no reason this man should crave what no other man had. The cajoling voice in her head gently reminding her that she had had little contact with men aside from those within her own family, did not ease her self-castigation by much.
    The chill touch of rain on her face yanked her from her musings, and she frowned up at the sky. “I dinna believe the rain will be kind and wait until we reach the shelter we seek.”
    Gabel also scowled up at the sky. “We are not far from it, if your companion spoke the truth.”
    “He did. Ronald has no desire to weather a Highland storm in the open.” She glanced down at his leg, and smiled faintly when she noticed the bumps raised on his skin by the increasingly cold wind and the damp. “Ye will soon sorely regret your lack of covering.”
    “You are most concerned about my state of undress, mistress. Does it trouble you?”
    “Only in that I have no wish to nurse even more Normans.”
    “A little wetting will not cause me to fall ill. It will but wash away the dust.”
    “A warm, French rain may weel be so refreshing, Sir Gabel. Howbeit, this is a Highland rain, and ’tis late in the year. This rain will push the cold through your flesh to your verra bones.”
    “Then nudge your mount to a greater speed. The hill we plan to hide in is but a short trot from here.”
    “My horse shouldna be made to endure such a trial. He is unused to carrying such weight.”
    “This huge beast could carry two fully armed knights upon his strong back and little notice it.” Gabel patted the animal’s side.
    “Aye, when he hasna already been ridden for hours and forced to flee a pack of French reivers.”
    “I am no reiver. Once we are in our shelter, sitting round a warm fire, we will talk. You will soon learn that I am no reiver, once you come to know me.”
    That was the very last thing Ainslee wished to do. It was proving difficult to ignore the allure of his body and handsome face. He was dangerously attractive. She dreaded thinking of how much that allure could deepen if she began to know the man, to respect or even like him. As she reined in by the mouth of the cave they sought, Ainslee prepared herself to face an ordeal—fending off Sir Gabel’s attempts to charm her, to make her forget that she was a prisoner, and lead her to falsely believe that she could ever be anything more.

Three
    “My cousin needs no more tending, mistress,” Gabel said as he stepped up next to Ainslee.
    Ainslee gave a slight start, then cursed the tension that caused her to be so obviously uneasy. She had been purposely avoiding Sir Gabel from the moment they had entered the cave, barely escaping the sudden downpour of rain. The last thing she wished to do was to sit near him around a fire, talking and learning all about him. There was a look on his handsome face which told her that he suspected that she was trying to elude him, and she inwardly grimaced, silently cursing herself for a coward.
    “I was stitching his wound. It needed closing,” she murmured, and struggled against flushing