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Authors: The Bride of Rosecliffe

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Her answer was to start stiffly for her new lodgings, but he caught her by the arm. “Do you deny it?” he persisted. “You have trembled with passion in my embrace. I can make you do so again.”
“Then you are even more vile than I thought. Would you force me? Would you force me, then turn around and wed me to your own brother?”
He released her so fast she nearly fell. She had heard. How he wanted to deny those intentions, but he could not. So he said, “It is but one possibility. I have not yet made a final decision.”
“You
have not made a final decision.
You?
What of
my
final decision? I am as likely to agree to marry him as I am to marry a dog. Besides, I vow he will not be pleased to marry the shrew that he will fast discover me to be.”
Rand felt a brief twinge of ill-placed humor. How he would enjoy seeing his younger brother rebuffed by an angry Josselyn. It would do the troublesome whelp a world
of good. But no matter how she tried to rebuff the lad, in the end, if Rand deemed it politically expedient, she would wed with Jasper. And he could find no humor in that at all.
“I’ll be certain to warn him,” he muttered.
“I will not be wed to him,” she vowed. “I will not.” Then she turned and fled.
Rand did not stop her but instead followed. She was fast but he knew he could overtake her should she try to escape. But she did not try to flee the camp, and in the end, she burst through the door of his own sturdy quarters. Before she could turn and close the door against him, however, he shoved his way in.
She was winded, as was he, and in the weak light of the guttering candle she was more beautiful than ever. She roused his blood like no other woman did, whether she smiled on him, raged at him, or rejected him completely.
Could he truly see her wed to his own brother?
At that moment Rand did not think so.
“Get out,” she ordered.
“These are my quarters.”
“Then I will gladly leave them to you.”
“I want you to stay.”
A man in charge of his own fate—and hers—would not have termed it so. Rand knew that at once. He should order her to stay. Command her to stay. Force her to stay. Instead he requested that she stay. A clear sign of his weakness for her, he feared. Yet when confusion flickered in her vivid eyes, he knew he’d somehow turned a key in the gate she’d erected between them.
He closed the door behind him and the click of the latch settling into place seemed to lock out everyone else. Her uncle. His brother. Even the king and all the reasons that had brought Rand to Wales.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a decidedly less strident tone.
“Tomorrow Newlin may come to see to you. Tonight, however, we are alone.”
“I … We … we should not be alone. My uncle will be furious.”
“Yes. No doubt he will. But will
you
be furious? That is what I must determine, Josselyn.”
“This makes no sense!” She backed around the table. “You make no sense. First you make love to me, then you reject me for being an innocent. Then you take me hostage and say I must wed your brother, and yet here you are trying to … to …”
She trailed off, but Rand finished for her. “And here I am, trying again to make love to you.”
“I am still a virgin. That stopped you once before. Mayhap the reminder will stop you again.”
“No.” He unfastened his sword belt and laid the weapon aside.
“I do not want this. You will have to force me.”
“No. I won’t.” He shrugged out of his hauberk and tossed it onto a trunk.
“It will be rape, for I will never agree. You would rape me after promising my uncle I will be safe? You would rape the very woman you say you will give to your brother?”
He heard panic in her voice and saw fear in her flashing eyes. Fear and hatred. While he was confident he could eventually overcome her fear, her hatred was another thing entirely.
Though it pained him sorely, Rand knew he must change his tactics. Irritated, he flung himself into a chair, raised one booted foot, and plopped it on the table. “I will concede the point. For now. Nonetheless, I am loath to abandon these comfortable lodgings when they are so recently completed.”
“Then I will abandon them.”
“Ah, but this is the sturdiest building we have, and therefore the best prison for my hostage.” He spread his arms to encompass the whole room. “It appears we will have to share it.”
“No.”
“We need not share the bed—unless you desire it.”
As
I desire it.
She shook her head vehemently. “I do not trust you.”
“Nor do I trust you. But we will manage despite that. Here, come remove my boots so that I may enjoy what little is left of this night. To sleep,” he added when her eyes narrowed.
“Surely you jest! I have no intention whatsoever of serving you. You are my enemy and I refuse to offer you any sort of comfort. Nor will I—”
She jerked when his fist slammed down on the table, rattling the candle stand and a pewter dish. “Be grateful I am giving you a choice!” he exclaimed, frustrated by her obstinacy. “You are a prisoner here, not a guest, and you will work for your keep. Serve me in my bed, or serve me everywhere else. You choose. But do so quickly, else I will make the choice for you. I believe we both know what my choice will be.”
It was no choice at all. He knew it; she knew it. He watched the play of emotions across her lovely face. The struggle between feelings and logic. That she hated him in that moment, he did not doubt. That she could control that emotion with logic, however, interested him even more. How often had he fought that same battle in his dealings with the king and his most powerful barons? To repress his true feelings, to tame them with logic and practicality, had brought him many rewards. A woman possessed of similar talents, however, was a novelty to him.
What a pity she was not English. With her courage and shrewdness, she would make a perfect wife for an ambitious lord.
But she was not English.
He clenched his teeth and repressed his own emotions beneath the iron hand of logic. “Decide. I grow weary of this cat and mouse game we play.”
Fury sparked in her eyes. But she held it back, albeit
with considerable effort. He waggled his foot back and forth, and her eyes darted from his face to his leather boot and back again. “What sort of service do you mean—tending to your quarters and your possessions?”
“And my person,” he added, enjoying the way her eyes darkened at his words.
“Perhaps you could be more specific.” Her voice was laced with acid.
“Why certainly. You would help me dress. And undress.” He waggled his foot once more. “You can start by removing my boots.”
Ah, but victory was sweet, he thought when, after an endless hesitation, she started forward. He should have been disappointed. After all, he needed her in his bed more than he needed her to clean and scrub for him. But she would be dressing him—and undressing him—and that was a step in the right direction.
She muttered a curse when she reached the table. He wasn’t sure of the meaning of the Welsh phrase, but he was certain it did not flatter him.
“I will also want to continue our lessons in the
Cymraeg
tongue,” he said as she reached for his mud-encrusted boot.
“You trust me to teach you the correct meaning of words? How do you know I won’t tell you wrong?”
“Perhaps you will tell me wrong. But as time goes by your anger will abate, Josselyn, and with it your need to oppose me. Now come. Enough of this contest of wills. Help me undress and we will sleep. The dawn comes soon enough, and our labors with it.”
Josselyn knew he was right. She knew that it would not benefit her to oppose him any further. He’d given her an alternative to his bed, and for now she must content herself with that. After all, she’d resigned herself to a marriage with Owain. In truth, serving Randulf Fitz Hugh was not nearly so loathsome a task as lying with the cruel Owain.
For a moment she allowed herself to wonder. What would lying with Rand be like?
Not loathsome, she admitted, then immediately condemned herself for so traitorous a response. She would serve him as he ordered, but she would
not
succumb to his masculine wiles. And if he thought to seduce her by their proximity, he had much to learn of Welsh pride. She would listen and learn and somehow try to escape. She would not end up naked in his bed with his hard warrior’s body sliding over hers—
“Gwrtaith,”
she cursed again. Then she reached for the boot and began to pull.
The boots proved to be easy; the stockings far less so. For his stockings were warm, and once removed, they revealed portions of his person she’d not previously laid eyes upon. Large pale feet. Strong ankles and muscular calves sprinkled with dark hair.
He was not as dirty as most men. Her nose wrinkled. Nor did he stink. Those were intimate details about him, however, that she did not wish to know.
“Now my chainse,” he said, leaning forward and extending his arms.
Josselyn flinched and scrambled to her feet. He did not grab at her though. Rather, it was his laced cuffs he wanted her to untie.
He grinned at her discomfiture. “I know my English clothing is unlike the garb of your people, but surely these simple lacings are not beyond your ken.”
She could get through this, she told herself. She could. Without speaking, she made swift work of the laces, then rudely tugged the loose garment over his shoulder and head. “I will wash this in the morning,” she muttered, refusing to look at his naked chest. Unfortunately, the linen shirt, even warmer than his socks, unsettled her as much as did the man.
“What of my braies? The crossbandings are knotted.”
“You are well able to manage them on your own.” She backed away from him, flinging the chainse into a corner.
“I am well able to manage all my clothing needs on my
own. That is not in question. Since you will not attend my other needs, you must attend these. Remove my braies.”
Rand waited, watching her, aroused by her presence, annoyed by the predicament she put him in. He wanted her, yet to take her when she would be of more use wed to Jasper was unwise indeed. But that didn’t prevent him from wanting her all the same. This game they played was frustrating, and yet he could not make himself stop.
Josselyn was no less frustrated herself. He was a man like any other, and yet unlike any other. Bower was as tall; Owain as brawny. Dulas had bluer eyes and Dryw a more charming manner. Added to that they were all Welsh, whereas he was a hated Englishman. Yet it still remained that he was the one who stirred her senses. None of those others made her skin tingle or her breathing cease. None of them. She hated him, and yet he moved her in ways she did not comprehend.
Still, that did not mean he could defeat her.
She lifted her chin to a defiant angle. “Very well.” Gritting her teeth—staring anywhere but at his naked chest and arms—she crossed to him. He stood as she knelt to fumble with the crossbanding knotted just below his knees. Beneath her fingers he was warm. Her entire body heated from the warmth he radiated.
Somehow she freed one knot, then concentrated on the other. It loosened, but before she could back away she felt his hand in her hair.
“Josselyn …”
She foolishly looked up, up the impressive length of him, past his thighs and loins, and broad muscled chest, to meet his overheated gaze. His palm cupped her cheek and for an endless moment she was caught in the trap he’d set, caught by his tantalizing allure, by the forbidden nature of it. She knew he was aroused. The bulge in his braies was not an excess of linen.
Unfortunately, she was aroused too. At least that must be what these foreign feelings were. Her heart raced; she
barely remembered to breathe; and every portion of her, from toes to belly to cheeks, was on fire.
“Josselyn,” he repeated, and were it not for the English cadence of his pronunciation, she would have been lost. But he spoke as an Englishman and that one fact drew her back to reality.
With a cry of dismay she scrambled backward. “I am done. Are you satisfied? Now let me be. Let me be!”
She did not dare look at him again—she was that weak—and she prayed fervently that he was satisfied with the torture he’d already inflicted upon her. Only when she had barricaded herself in the corner, with a rug wrapped around her and her cloak over all, did she allow herself a sidelong peek at him.
He had turned away from her, though the sight of his naked back was no less disturbing than his naked front. Still, it signified that he would trouble her no more this night. She heard his harsh breathing. She watched him strip off the loose braies.
She should have looked away, but she could not. Beneath his small cloth his arousal appeared even more pronounced.
“You see what you do to me.”

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