Wolfsgate Read Online Free PDF

said. “I have no other family, you know that. I had nowhere else to go. Once your father passed away, I was all alone. They were preparing to marry me off to someone else, when they discovered you were in hospital, sunk into oblivion. The point is William wanted control.”
    He only nodded and poured himself another drink, gulping it down. “He married Amanda? How the hell did that happen?”
    “He wooed her for some time after you had left for Jamaica, and one day she agreed. They live at Crestdown with her father and brother.” Justine chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t really know the details. Amanda and I do not share confidences. We were never close.”
    “Obviously neither were she and I,” he muttered. “And what do you get out of this, Justine?”
    “Pardon?”
    “You heard me, answer the question.” His face was immobile, her insides shuddered under the harshness of his glare.
    “You think I wanted this? To be forced to marry you in order to let them steal from you and Wolfsgate?”
    “Answer the bloody question,” he said on a hiss. “How much did they promise you? And what is it you want of me? My name? My title? What is it?”
    “You don’t believe me then? That they forced me?”
    “Why should I?”
    Justine’s skin prickled. All the stress and fatigue of the last months pressed on her every nerve. She never imagined Brandon would believe the worst of her. “At first they had arranged to marry me to some acquaintance of theirs in London with whom they did business. An older man. Much older. Then they decided my marrying you was a better course of action, that I would be more useful to them this way.”
    “Of course you’d be more useful. As the wife to the only legal heir of Wolfsgate, you were their gateway to my fortune.” He raised his glass at her. “Mission accomplished, Lady Graven.”
    The blood roared in her head, and something snapped inside her. “Indeed. Look at me—fancy frocks, my own lady’s maid to dress me and fix my hair every day, giving parties and attending many, and this fabulous house to show off and call my own.”
    “Enough!” His pale green eyes flashed at her.
    “I am not profiting from this arrangement, Brandon.” She planted her hands on her hips and lowered her voice. “I didn’t want this for you or for me, but I had no choice.”
    Brandon’s weary eyes shifted over her and then around the room like a caged animal scouting for an escape route. His right hand shook slightly. That needy compulsion gnawed at him.
    Justine poured him a glass of brandy. She raised the crystal glass in his direction, and he took it from her. He gulped the liquor, his dull eyes never leaving hers. “Another,” he muttered, his voice flat. She took the glass, filled it halfway and returned it to his shaking hand. He drained it then leaned closer, his warm breath fanning her cheek. The fumes of liquor evaporated over her face.
    “Why shouldn’t I just turn you out the door, eh? This very minute.” His lips hung open as if they would bare his teeth at any moment.
    She held her breath. “You could.”
    He cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, I could.”
    “But, frankly, I’m all you have at present.”
    Brandon’s chin shot up. “Who says I need anyone?”
    “Look at you.”
    He took in a deep breath, his jaw stiffening. He held the glass out to her. “Another.” He watched her as she poured only a little in his glass and handed it back to him. “If all is as you say, we make the perfect pair.” He saluted her with his glass. “To us then, Justine—the manipulated, the tossed off, the rejected.” He drank, but then held the glass out to her. “I think you had better have some yourself. You are going to need it, wife.”
    She took the glass from him, her cold fingers grazing his warm ones. She swallowed what was left in one go, because she knew what he was thinking.
    The inevitable.
    Would he use that as punishment? His eyes glittered over her, and a shiver raced down