The Lady of the Storm - 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

dispassionate boredom. “Get dressed. Before I do something we shall both regret.”
    “But… but…” Cecily tried to gather her wits. He didn’t understand. He thought she was some foolish girl who didn’t know what she was about. Who wanted to use him for his good looks, and nothing more. “But I love you,” she managed to whisper. There, she’d done it. Confessed her secret longings, let him know that she desired him beyond what his other lovers surely did.
    He dropped the bedcovering, took a step backward. His voice, when he spoke, sounded oddly breathless. “Yes, yes. I’m sure you do. Now, be a good girl and get dressed.”
    Cecily rose to her knees. He just didn’t understand and this might be her one and only chance to tell him. She had to explain, and then surely he would fall into her arms as she had dreamed. Unlike Becca, Cecily would have the boldness to take what she wanted. And she had never wanted anything more than she wanted Giles Beaumont.
    So despite the heat in her face, she confessed her heart. “You think I’m like all the other girls, don’t you? But, Giles, I’m not. None of them are worthy of you. Not a one of them will cherish you the way I do. I am your soul mate, and ours will be a greater love than you can possibly imagine. You just don’t know it yet. You just need…”
    He’d stepped closer again, his hand reaching out to her face as if her words had somehow cast a spell over him, and he couldn’t stop himself. His handsome features had softened; his eyes glazed with some emotion Cecily couldn’t identify, yet somehow understood.
    She suppressed a grin of victory.
    But his fingers halted mere inches from her face, and he snatched them back as if the thought of touching her might burn him as easily as molten metal. He shook his head, water droplets spraying her skin like tiny spears of ice. And then he laughed. “Who the hell are you?”
    “Why, I’m…” She could not say her name, for the meaning of his words slowly drifted past the intensity of her feelings. How could he not know her? She loitered in the forge every day. She knew his every habit. What he liked to eat, how the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the way he would grow silent when angered.
    And he couldn’t even recall her name?
    He hadn’t noticed her among the bevy of his admirers. She hadn’t been worthy of his notice.
    A humiliation unlike anything she had ever known before suffused her. She had confessed an infatuation that was entirely one-sided. Hers. She gathered up her clothing and backed out of the room, her passion turning into a rage that threatened to overwhelm her. She ran before the control over her magic slipped beyond redemption.
    And learned that love could fool. That passion could blind. And that…
    Will cleared his throat from the doorway of Old Man Hugh’s cottage. Cecily untangled her fingers from the blacksmith’s hair. How long had she been sitting here staring at him? Revisiting memories she’d thought she had managed to bury years ago?
    She attempted to rise but Giles’s eyelids suddenly flew open and he grasped her hand. “Must leave… keep you safe.”
    His big hand felt so warm, her fingers dwarfed in his. Something ran through her, a frisson of feeling similar to what she had felt all those years ago. She should never have allowed that old memory to resurface with such excruciating detail.
    And yet, she now realized he had lied to her. That night, he had known who she was. He had used those words to hurt her, to discourage the childish infatuation she’d felt for him. But his laughter had been genuine, of that she could be sure. For he had been assigned to protect the Rebellion’s tool, had never truly seen her as a person. And what a lark the tool had turned out to be!
    Cecily twisted her hand from his and near growled her next words. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere with you.”
    But his eyes had already rolled back into his head.
    Will stood