How To Bed A Baron Read Free Page B

shored up by her touch, as if he were not alone in the world, as he had always been. As he had always been alone, since she went away.
                  “Did you love her, Arthur?”
                  He thought for a long moment, listening to the leanings of his heart. He never did such a thing, not since his father had died, for the heart seldom led where one might follow. He did so now, only because she asked it of him. For once, for blessed once, his heart did not show him pain.
                  “No,” he answered. “I did not love her. She needed rescuing, and I wanted to save her.”
                  “You are a white knight still.” Serena looked at him, unwavering, her frank green gaze taking him in as it had when they were small, and discussing important things, like where to cast their fishing lines in the river. She did not smile. “She was a fool to leave you, whatever her reason.”
                  “The heart wants what it wants, or so I have read.”
                  Serena’s generous lips quirked in a half smile, and he found himself staring at the plush line of them, wanting to lean close and taste her.
                  She did not seem to feel the same bolt of heat as he did, coming out of the clear blue sky to couple with his hopeless love for her. She treated him like a friend, just as she had always done, and patted his hand. “Tell me you have not been reading Byron.”
                  He laughed out loud at that. “Indeed. I have not.”
                  “Well, thank God for that,” she said. “Death improved him, if you ask me.”
                  “You met him then?”
                  “Only the once, when he passed through Parma on his way to Rome. My father was invited to a dinner held in his honor, and I was forced to attend.”
                  Something dark in her eyes made Arthur want to reach for a sword, though, of course, he did not wear one. “What did the bastard do?”
                  “Nothing he hasn’t tried with a thousand other women, and succeeded with most of them, if his own tales can be believed.”
                  “I would kill him twice,” Arthur said, pressing his hand down onto the wood of the table until a splinter wedged sharp in his palm. The pain did not make him see reason, however, only her voice did that.
                  “There is no need. I sorted him out,” Serena said, suddenly looking away, as if she might find something more interesting to discuss from her perusal of the tap room.
    Arthur would not let her avoid him but tugged on the sleeve of her gown. Fury had stolen the power of speech from him, it seemed, at least temporarily, but she must have felt his urgency along her arm, for she faced him again.
    Arthur finally found his voice. “How did you sort him?” He wondered if she had perhaps pushed the offending gentleman into a convenient fountain, as Italy was said to be full of such. But then she smiled.
    “I pushed my knee with great industry into a certain part of his anatomy that he valued.”
    Arthur laughed out loud at that, surprised to find himself given over to mirth twice in the space of ten minutes, with a bout of fury tucked in between. His heart warmed in her presence, as his skin turned pink in sunlight. Arthur could not remember when he had experienced such piercing emotions, and so many, all in one day. He was usually a calm man, a measured man who found amusements aplenty, but never passion.
    He looked into the deep green of her eyes, caught in her smile, and knew that his heart was in for a great deal more pain before Serena left him again. He did not shrink from her, though, or from the future he knew was coming. Instead, he caught her hand, and kissed it, surprising her into silence just when she had opened her mouth to speak again.
    “Come,