Tempt Me With Kisses Read Online Free PDF

mending.”
    “Why should he? Is it not your job to notice?”
    Ganore lifted a chin that looked so sharp it could slice bread, and crossed her wiry arms. “He doesn’t like anyone coming in here without his permission.”
    “So you have his permission to be here now?”
    The woman’s neck reddened, but her blush got no further.
    Nevertheless, Fiona was pleased to think she had gotten even that much of a chagrined reaction from Ganore. “I’m sure you’ve had many responsibilities but now—”
    “I was nurse to Caradoc, and his brother and sister, too. I have been in charge of the household since his dear mother, our wonderful Welsh lady, passed away.”
    Once more Fiona reined in her frustration and annoyance, but she was not about to let this woman think she could be bullied by a servant.
    “I am your lord’s guest,” she said evenly, yet with a firmness that would have stood many a nobleman in good stead. “I am sure you have heard that soon I shall be his wife. Do not interrupt me like that again, Ganore.”
    She watched as her words hit their target, then continued as if nothing of consequence had happened. “As I was saying, I’m sure you’ve had a position of responsibility for a long time, and that Lord Caradoc is very grateful. However, I am going to be your lord’s wife, so I will take over as befits the chatelaine of Llanstephan. After we are wed, you will give me the keys and show me about the castle. Before then, I should be introduced to those servants who have not marched into this chamber as if it were a soldiers’ barracks and introduced themselves to me. Do you understand?”
    Glare met glare, but Fiona was determined and at last Ganore looked away.
    “Yes,” she hissed.
    “Excellent.”
    Fiona turned back to the bed and lifted one of the small chests onto the floor. “Now, I need some help to change this linen,” she said as she straightened, turned—and found herself alone.
    Ganore had quit the field, it seemed. For now, at least, or perhaps merely to regroup before another sortie to try to find her enemy’s weak points.
    Of which there were many, and one most of all: Fiona MacDougal had been thoroughly, stupidly duped, tricked by a greedy scoundrel and played for a fool.
    She didn’t want Ganore, or anybody, to discover the other reason she had come back here.
    The shame of her folly haunted her still. She had been tricked by Iain MacLachlann’s persuasive manner and words of love, only to discover that he had merely wanted her money in his coffers, a means to raise himself in the court of King William of Scotland.
    Humiliated to the core of her soul, she had left Dunburn and gone where he would never find her. She had decided that if she must be seen as only a commodity to be peddled in marriage, she would at least choose where she was traded, and to whom.
    Her father had told her of the troubles at Llanstephan before he had died, having heard the stories from other wool merchants with whom he did business. She remembered her old infatuation, and her good opinion of Caradoc, and so she had sold her property and come here to make her offer.
    But as Caradoc’s shining, intense blue eyes studied her in his solar, she had feared that he could read all of the past six months in hers. It had taken every ounce of courage and determination she had to appear more confident than she was, to seem resolute rather than desperate, as she made her proposition.
    It had taken even more effort to meet his steadfast gaze in the courtyard, and to act as if his kiss had not incited hot desire with the force of a smith’s hammer striking an anvil.
    Then he had agreed to marry her, and it had been another war not to betray her relief.
    Or her sudden dread that she had made another mistake coming here, because when all was said and done, he was not the boy she remembered. He was a man, a lord in charge of an estate, mature and tested by troubles. Gruff, grim, stoic, how could she ever understand a