Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) Read Online Free PDF

his way with you, and damn, I think you might have liked it if he had, Diana!” He jerked her hard against him, hurting her with the pressure on her upper arms. “You’ve gotten it into your head that he might love you. Tanner can’t love anybody. He wanted you to get back at me. He wanted to have you first and destroy my joy in taking your innocence. Tanner hates me so much that he’d ruin you to hurt me. And then, Diana, what do you think Tanner would have done after he’d finished with you? What? Tell me.”
    He was nearly shaking her. “I don’t know!”
    “Let me tell you then, my dear. He’d have left you lying on the ground like a whore. You’re too innocent to realize what he intended for you. Believe me when I tell you that he can only hate the Sheridans. You’re going to be a Sheridan so he hates you. He hates you, Diana. Remember that.”
    She was shaking so badly that she had to sit down. Kingsley stood before her with clenched fists. Could what he have told her be true? Was she so inexperienced that she’d mistaken Tanner’s words, his actions, for love? She’d felt so wonderful when he kissed her and touched her. How could he have meant to use her or have his way with her like Anne and Kingsley said? Nothing he’d done to her had hurt her. But then she remembered the hate on his face, and she knew now that Kingsley must be telling the truth. She was going to be a Sheridan, and if Tanner hated his family so much, then Tanner might seek to harm them through her. And she’d been such an easy prey, so very easy that she felt ill to imagine Tanner chuckling over her body’s betrayal in his arms.
    “I don’t feel very well,” she told Kingsley. “I want to retire.” Kingsley took her hand and led her upstairs. He kissed her on the cheek before leaving her at her door.
    ~ ~ ~
     
    “Tanner’s going to pay for this, Father. I swear he will.”
    Harlan Sheridan watched as his son grabbed for a whip, the long black tail coiling on the floor like a menacing swamp viper. The older man held up his hands to prevent Kingsley from storming out the library door. “Don’t act hastily,” Harlan advised. “Tanner is a fine overseer. I don’t relish him lying abed for days during harvest time. We need all the slaves now, and especially Tanner. You know they don’t listen to anyone but him.”
    “That’s because you’re weak, old man!” Kingsley hissed from between his teeth. He threw out the whip and grinned at the high, whining sound it made. “But I bet they’ll listen to me.”
    Harlan was tempted to berate his son for this pitiful display of manhood. Sometimes he wondered from whom Kingsley had inherited such a mean streak. Celeste, his dear wife and Kingsley’s mother, had been such a gentle, doe-like person. She could never have harmed a soul. And he, well, he didn’t like violence of any kind. Perhaps that was why he was so pleased with Tanner. Tanner had the ability to make the slaves work with little complaining because all of them stood in awe of him. They worked hard to please Tanner, not Harlan Sheridan, and certainly not Kingsley. In many ways Tanner was master of Briarhaven. Now, however, Kingsley planned to punish Tanner for forcing his attentions upon Diana.
    Most certainly, Harlan agreed that Tanner should be punished. He should have known better than to lay a hand upon Kingsley’s fiancée. The thought never crossed Harlan’s mind that Diana might have welcomed Tanner’s touch. But no matter what had transpired between Tanner and Diana, Tanner didn’t deserve to be whipped.
    “I’m certain I can decide on another course of punishment,” Harlan assured his son. “You just forget the whole thing. Your wedding is two days away, and you can’t waste your time on disciplining an overseer.”
    Kingsley reared back on his boot heels. “Oh, can’t I? You’d like that, Father. I know what sort of punishment you’d dream up for Tanner, something short and brief like a severe