Lady Thief - By Rizzo Rosko Page 0,51

all the bluster of a winter storm. There was no pout on his face or an ungentlemanly slouch in his back. The air around him did waft thick, however, and passing maids and children scurried out of his way.

Marianne wished she could ask William about the true relationship between him and Blaise. She could not for a moment believe that William was Blaise’s father, not when he had Robert’s orange head of hair and face. So then why did William keep Blaise under his roof and call him his son when he so obviously was not?

Marianne sighed. If there had ever been a chance for her to convince William that she did not need a squire to follow her, this event surely destroyed it.

Why did her father have to bring ruin to her happiness? He always seemed to be around the corner with a piece of bad news to spring upon her.

The deaths of her brothers, Reggie slipping from his horse, Blaise’s insulting letter, her engagement to Sir Ferdinand, and now this.

The anger bubbled inside her like boiling water. Her body shaking with effort to contain it.

“I am not a thief.” She spoke the words without thinking.

“I never assumed you were, my dear.”

She wished he would refrain from calling her that. A sweet pet-name was meant for lovers, not strangers.

They would have been lovers had Blaise not stormed in on them and made that horrible accusation.

“I do like seeing your cheeks that color, my dear, but knowing ‘tis not I making you so angry upsets me.”

Marianne ignored him, spun and tried to storm away. She should have known he would not let her.

He grabbed her and forcefully turned her. Marianne found her entire body pressed closely into his chest, his chin resting atop her head in his attempt to contain her anger. “No more will you stomp around like a spoiled child.”

“Spoiled child?” She raged, now wishing to claw out his eyes instead as her voice rose. “Blaise accuses me of stealing from my new home, and you—”

Her words stalled on her lips when William dragged her into the next room. He returned her to her feet before he slammed the door.

She knew the room without turning around. ‘Twas one of the rooms she had yelled and screamed for the servants to clean, and in the end she had to help clean it because the few maids willing to get back to their work straight away had been scattered all over the castle with other chores, and completing them as slowly as possible.

The large bed in the center of the room with its clean sheets took up all of her attention, and she flushed with the recognition of where William’s thoughts had gone.

“If you think for one moment that we are going to do this now—”

William went to her, wrapped his arms under her bottom and lifted her into the air as though she weighed less than a girl’s doll. Marianne shrieked, her fists pounded his shoulders and back uselessly, but he held firm until throwing her onto the bed where she bounced helplessly.

She nearly slipped off, but he was on her in an instant, clasping her wrists and holding them above her head with only one of his much larger hands.

She blew locks of red hair out of her eyes and glared at him. “If you do this, I shall never forgive you.”

He was neither smiling nor scowling. “You certainly think highly of yourself.”

“I think no such thing.”

“And you obviously think very little of me.”

“What?”

“I would never force myself on you, and have never done so to any woman. Ever.” His grip on her wrists tightened. “I would have thought that after sharing my bed with you all this time, you would have a little more sense than that.” He paused. “And respect.”

She snarled and struggled despite knowing he was much too heavy for her to move, ‘twas more for him to see that she would not give in to him so easily. “Forgive me if my wits have abandoned me while you press me into the bed.”

William dropped her wrists and moved to close the curtains surrounding them. Marianne’s shock took hold of her with this new movement. Her confusion gripped her as tight as William’s hands and she could not lower her arms from where they had been held.

He returned and settled himself next to her, laying one hand palm down on the blanket beside her head. While he did not put his whole weight onto her