Royal 02 - Royal Passion Read Online Free PDF Page B

gentil knight,’ suffering rather than intrude upon a lady's sanctity? Nothing so gallant. The horses were restless."
    "And you acted as the groom?” She could not keep the surprise from her voice.
    "Not alone. Horses are the livelihood, the transportation, and the wealth of the Tziganes , the gypsies, and particularly this group, who are breeders and traders of fine stock. But I, myself, have an aversion to being left afoot when there is something I can do to prevent it."
    Mara did not doubt that there were servants in plenty he could have called to see to the matter. That he had gone himself gave her pause. She had thought of him as the consummate aristocrat, with the carelessness of that breed for the welfare of underlings and animals, and for anything that did not directly affect his own comfort and consequence. This was no time, however, for explorations of personality. What the prince was like as a man had no bearing on what she had to do.
    "You must be ... cold."
    "Are you by chance offering to warm me?"
    All she had to do was to say yes, and yet the very boldness of the question shook her resolve. She said in haste, “Only to share the covers."
    The air wafted in a faint draft, then his voice came from just above her as if he had moved to kneel beside the low bed. “No soft pillow on your breast, no sweet sucklings and bouncing joy before I drift into sated sleep?"
    "I am not—not your nurse!” The catch in her voice was caused not by panic, but by the warm curling of some odd pain in her chest.
    "An excellent thing,” he said, then, rising in one swift movement, lifted the fur coverlet and slid in beside her.
    She flung herself away from him with a sharp exclamation, then, as she realized what she was doing, abruptly stopped. She was a fool. She could have wept with pent-up nerves and self-castigation. Somehow she must learn to control herself, to force her body to accept the dictates of her will. If the prince made another advance, if he reached out to touch her, she must not, would not, retreat. She would accept it and, pray God, respond.
    He did not move. She might have been alone in the bed, so scant was the evidence of his presence. If he was breathing, she could not tell it, so quiet was he. The lack of strain in the coverlet over them both was an indication of his complete relaxation. It seemed after a time that he must have the facility for instant sleep, for he made no restless shifts of position. By degrees the tension left her own muscles and she allowed her eyelids to close. The rain drummed on the caravan roof with a soothing, unfaltering rhythm. Her shoulder, which was uncovered, grew cool, and she eased the fur higher, snuggling under its warmth.
    The gray creep of daylight into the caravan brought Mara awake once more. She lifted her lashes with reluctance. She tried to stretch and stifled a small sound of distress. She was sore in every muscle, and her shoulder was so stiff that she was not sure she would be able to move it. It was not memory, however, but some tingling sense of awareness that reminded her that she was not alone in the bed. She swung her head to one side and stared into the eyes of the prince.
    He lay on his side watching her, with his head propped on one hand. The cover had slipped from him so that his torso was bare. The soft light of morning gleamed bronze across the sculptured muscles of his wide shoulders and caught glints of gold in the soft mat of hair on his chest. The appreciation in his gaze was bright, but underlying it was concentrated and cogent thought.
    Her dark hair lay in shining serpentine waves around her head on the pillow. The pure oval of her face grew slowly flushed with delicate shell-pink color that also extended along the graceful turn of her neck to the curves of her breasts beneath the low neckline of her silk camisole. Her lips, parted in surprise, were sweetly molded, soft and moist. But her hand, which lay on the coverlet, was clenched into a