Sharon Lanergan Read Online Free PDF Page B

to take the motherly approach. “You need some more light.”
    “There is a wall sconce to your left.”
    The rich, alluring voice offering so much comfort in Loutrant’s castle was gone. His voice seemed hollow now, lifeless.
    Strange. He cared more for her when they were both prisoners.
    Constance lit the sconce and turned back to face him. Brian now stood just a few feet from her. She resisted the urge to cry out.
    His mahogany hair stood on end. Under his intensely almost black eyes were dark circles, and the eyes themselves had a hazy, not quite there, cast to them.
    Dressed as he was before in a brown jerkin and breeches, his white undershirt was askance. He swayed slightly on his feet.
    His masculine beauty made her heart ache, but that beauty lay dormant behind a mask of gloom and depravity.
    “Brian, you have been drinking,” Constance accused.
    “You’ve noticed.” He gestured to the empty wine bottle on the small table in the room. “Rather heavily, actually.”
    Constance frowned. She opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of his drinking.
    “You shouldn’t be here,” Brian said. “You don’t belong here.”
    She closed her mouth, thoughts of railing at him for drink flying from her mind. He still did not want to talk to her. It was plain enough. She ought to scurry from the room before she got burned.
    Once, Constance did what she ought to and nothing more. Before Loutrant.
    “You don’t belong here either,” she said softly. “Sit down, my lord. I want to have a normal conversation with you.”
    “We don’t know what normal is, you and I.” But despite his coolly spoken words, Brian took the chair by the small table. He peered anxiously at the empty bottle.
    “I’ll not bring you more,” Constance told him. She sat on the small wood bench on the other side of the table.
    “I’ll save us both the trouble,” Brian said after a moment of heavy silence. “You’ve been sent up here to try and talk to me. I have naught to say.”
    Constance shook her head. “It is so easy for you to just dismiss us, isn’t it?”
    Brian tapped his long fingers on the table. She was drawn to the light dusting of hair on his large hand. His midnight eyes darkened, but he did not respond.
    “I know you do not care about anyone, my lord, but the rest of us do not feel that way. We do care about you.”
    Constance could resist no longer. She covered his hand with hers. A jolt of pure awareness sent a shiver through her. When his gaze flared with some unknown emotion, she was certain Brian would pull his hand away.
    He did not.
    He turned his hand over until her fingers touched his palm. The warmth there surprised her. His fingers closed around hers and Constance lost all ability to think.
    Then abruptly, Brian disengaged his hand from hers. Constance was left with her hand resting on the table alone. She felt foolish.
    “You are wrong,” Brian said quietly. “It isn’t that I do not care. None of it matters.”
    “But it does matter. We are never going to get past this if we don’t talk about it,” Constance insisted.
    He tilted his head, studied her, saw into her, she supposed.
    “We?”
    Constance pulled back. “I meant you. You are never going to get past this.”
    Don’t say too much , she reprimanded herself.
    “Come to the meal this evening, my lord,” Constance urged.
    Brian was already shaking his head.
    “Please. I promise there won’t be a lot of people. I will make sure it is only the family.”
    “I don’t …”
    “Brian, please.” Constance didn’t know what else to do, so she knelt in front of him and grasped his hands in hers before he could pull away. The same tingle shivered through her, but this time she forced it away.
    Brian blinked, his eyes turning an ever darker shade.
    She knew he hesitated still. She squeezed his hands. His gaze dropped to their joined fingers.
    “Very well, I will go,” he agreed, his voice void of any emotion. “But only the family, no