By Grace Possessed Read Free Page B

them to us.” It would also serve to help warm her, as would constructing a shelter. But mentioning either need was another thing that seemed unwise at the moment.
    “And if it doesn’t, if we are not found before morning?”
    “Then it will be later,” he said with finality.
    “You may be satisfied with that, but I, sir, am not!”
    He cocked his head, frowning at her as she stood facing him with blue fire in her eyes and the bearing of an injured queen. “Meaning?”
    “We will be expected to marry. Had you not considered that point, or is it that you anticipate taking an heiress to wife?”
    Anger stirred Ross’s blood to a slow simmer. “You think I would keep you here of a purpose, to force you to the altar?”
    “It’s been done before.” She glanced at him and then away again.
    “Not by me,” he countered in hard deliberation. “I’ve no use for a Sassenach bride.”
    More hot color flared in her face for his plain speaking, and her chin came up. “Excellent,” she said in clear disdain, “because I have no use for a Scots husband. No, nor any other kind.”
    “None at all?” He could not keep the surprise from his voice. To be unmarried was an odd ambition in a woman, or so was his experience.
    “I’ll not be the death of a man.”
    She was so certain in her pronouncement, and so grim withal. He couldn’t prevent the salacious grin that curled one corner of his mouth. “His death, is it? And from what cause might that be?”
    “Not what you may suppose!” she answered with fierce ire and another flood of rose-red in her face. “Have you not heard of the accursed Three Graces of Graydon?”
    “Oh, aye, that.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “You may treat it as a jest, but I assure you it is real.”
    “Sisters who may be married for no reason except love, is it? And who can cause the death of any man who betroths himself to them without it? It’s a tale bandied about the court. I heed it not.”
    “So you would accept whatever consequences may befall.”
    He watched her, enjoying the stiff disdain on her features, glad of that show of temper compared to her earlier pallor. “I see little reason to get in a bother. No one can force us to marry. The scandal may affect your marriage prospects, but that hardly matters if you don’t expect to wed.”
    “You are forgetting King Henry.”
    “And what has he to say to it?”
    “A great deal, as I am a royal ward by his grace. He has been contemplating the best match for me for some few weeks now. Suppose he should decide an alliance with the son of a Scots laird would suit him well?”
    Unease spread through Ross. God’s blood, but she might be right again.
    He had been left behind in England after James III of Scotland made peace with the Sassenach back in the summer, pledged as a hostage to keep his father in check. That randy old goat took savage delight in feuding with his English neighbors, raiding across the border any time boredom moved him. The results did nothing to ease border tensions. Ross had endured five months of enforced English hospitality, had supped at Henry Tudor’s table and become a boon companion of the solemn-faced conqueror of the last Plantagenet king. Henry could easily decide to attach him permanently to his court with a marriage tie. That was, if he had no better match for the lady.
    “I am of Scotland and answer to King James alone,”Ross said in harsh reply. “Never will I bow to the will of an English king.”
    She stared at him, her eyes darkly blue. It was as if she weighed him, not just his outward appearance but what he was inside. An icy trickle moved down his spine that was very like a warning.
    “Do you swear it?” she asked.
    Ignoring the presentiment, he raised his clenched fist and thumped it upon his chest above his heart. “You have my word.”
    Her smile was as wintry as the evening sky. “And will remember it, as I have no defense of my own against Henry’s intentions. See that you do the