In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,34
his eyes.
She moistened her lips with care. “Misjudge you, knave? I think not. More’s the like you misjudge yourself and your effect on women of unimpaired senses and sensibilities.”
Eduard’s mouth curved up at the corner and his gaze slid with shocking deliberation to where the outline of her breasts betrayed just how unsensible an effect he was having on her. The weave of the cloth was fine enough to echo the nervous tremors that were racing through her flesh. Fine enough to leave no doubt as to the sensations flowing through her body, making her breasts hard and full and exquisitely defined.
Ariel de Clare did not have to follow his stare to know what had drawn his lewd attentions. Partly to cover her own embarrassment and partly to put an end to any further liberties he might endeavor to take, she stepped forward, swinging her hand upward with a swift savagery that would have left bleeding scratch marks on his face had Eduard’s reflexes not been a hair quicker to react. He leaned slightly back and twisted to the side, exposing his entire face to the torchlight as he did so. The shock of seeing the gnarled weal of scarred flesh that had, until then, been camouflaged by shadow, caused Ariel a split second’s worth of hesitation—more than enough time for Eduard to catch her wrist and twist it around into the small of her back.
The action brought her crushing against his chest, whereupon he snatched up her other wrist and pinned it with the first for good measure.
“A spirited little dabchick,” he commented wryly, averting his face to avoid the sudden thrashing of wild red hair.
“Unhand me, you ugly, cowardly brute! Unhand me at once!”
“Tsk tsk tsk … two insults in as many minutes. I would have a man’s tongue plucked out of his head for less.”
“Brute! Churl! Lech! Let me go, I tell you! Let me go”
“I might consider doing so, my lady vixen, if you would but pay a small price for my leniency.”
“Pay a price?” Ariel stopped struggling and glared upward, the fury sparking in her eyes like flashes of green fire. “Me?”
Eduard glanced casually around the armoury. “I see no other trespassers here.”
Ariel huffed her breath free—a difficult task with her arms pinned at her back and her breasts crushed against a solid wall of granite. “Ahh. And because we are alone, this price you would ask, I warrant, would be a kiss or two, freely given?”
Eduard’s intentions had been more inclined toward a name, or an explanation of her presence in the armoury, but her suggestion was not without certain appeal. Up close, the light from the torch threaded her hair with gold and showed her mouth to favour the shape of a sulky, moist pout. Her squirmings were emphasizing just how long and lithe her limbs were, and, because he saw no reason not to, he let a hand slip down to caress her bottom, pulling her even closer.
“I might be persuaded to accept such an offering,” he murmured.
Ariel’s anger took her almost beyond speech. It certainly took her beyond rational thought as she looked deliberately at the molten mass of scar tissue and hissed her opinion through her teeth. “A maid would have to be blind, drunk, and addle-witted to offer to kiss such a beast as you, sirrah. Now, unhand me at once or my uncle will have your ballocks for trophies, your eyes for archery targets, and your hands for tavern signs.”
The muscle in Eduard’s jaw flexed. His grip turned to iron and there was no longer any mocking gentleness in the way he held her against his body. “I tremble with trepidation, my lady. Dare I inquire after the name of this bloodthirsty fellow that I might bolt my door at night and crouch beneath my bed in terror?”
“Well you should hide and crouch,” she spat, “for when my uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, Marshal of England, Lion of the Lists, finishes flaying you alive, there will not be enough of you left for the crows to feed upon!”
Eduard’s arms sprang open as if he had been burned, and he stepped back so suddenly Ariel’s struggles sent her in a full spinning circle before she realized she was free. She stood swaying in the centre of the room, her lungs heaving for air, her fists clenched by her sides, her hair a froth of shiny curls around her shoulders.
“The Earl of Pembroke … is your uncle?” Eduard asked, horrified.