Tempt Me With Kisses Read Free Page A

should appreciate the difference.”
    She seemed to have anticipated every possible objection.
    “My dowry is three thousand marks.”
    He felt as if she had punched him in the stomach and winded him completely. Such a dowry would tempt the devil himself into matrimony.
    “Nobles marry for power and gain all the time,” she continued, her gaze even more intense, as if she would stare him into agreeing. “This would be no different, except that I bring no land or titles of my own. Therefore, I am no threat to anyone.”
    No threat, perhaps, but she was certainly unusual. She made her offer as calmly as if she were trading in a marketplace, not discussing marriage.
    What else should he expect from a wealthy merchant’s daughter? Awe? Deference?
    Surely at least a hint of uncertainty.
    “Why am I to be the lucky recipient of your largess, Fiona MacDougal?” he demanded. “There are other noblemen in need of money who could give you a title.”
    “That’s true,” she glibly answered. “But you have never been married before, so have no children who could cause conflict between us. Also, my father thought highly of your father.”
    Nothing of feelings, as he should have anticipated, and he told himself he was glad it was so. This way he could be all business, too. “Perhaps talk of my desperate straits has been greatly exaggerated.”
    She slowly surveyed the chamber, then him. “Many things have changed since I was last in Llanstephan.”
    He suddenly saw himself through her eyes: a man no longer in his youth, dressed in an old wool tunic much mended and the color of dung, wearing breeches not much different, with scuffed boots about ten years old and showing every day of their age.
    She smiled once more, smugly. “Nor do I see Welsh noblewomen lined up at your castle gate to marry you.”
    “Which does not mean I have not had other proposals made to me, Fiona MacDougal,” he retorted, his pride outraged despite his shabby garments. “I do, after all, have rank, and as you so bluntly point out, a title is a valuable commodity.”
    “Where is your bride, then, my lord?”
    “I have not yet found a woman to suit me,” he countered.
    She raised a brow in query. “Well, then, my lord, I assume you will be telling me to find another man with whom to share my body and my bounty.”
    She crossed her arms as she waited for him to answer, just as his father had all those times in this very room.
    But he was no longer a little boy anxious for a father’s approval, or a youth absurdly flattered by a girl’s attention. He was Lord Caradoc of Llanstephan Fawr, and he would remind this bold and brazen woman of that, no matter how much money she had.
    “Are you forgetting to whom you speak?” he asked, his voice a rumble as he came around the table and slowly circled her. “I am not some shepherd, Fiona MacDougal, discussing the price of wool. I am Lord Caradoc of Llanstephan, baron of the marches, knight of the realm.”
    He paused in front of her and leaned forward and his voice became a low growl as he whispered in her ear. “I do not take very kindly to ultimatums.”
    She did not avert her steadfast, green-eyed gaze. She did not wrinkle her nose as if he smelled. She did not move at all.
    Until she swallowed. Hard.
    A brazen, bold woman indeed, but he took a great deal of satisfaction in that swallow. He glanced down at the smooth curve of her jaw where it met her neck and fought a strong, unbidden urge to press his lips there.
    Her body and her bounty. A way to pay his taxes and keep his home. Money that would provide a dowry for Cordelia, too, so she could have some choice in a husband. Connor would even be absolved from the need to raise funds, and although he didn’t think his younger brother deserved absolution, the notion was tempting nonetheless.
    Her body was tempting, too. Lithe and supple, slender and shapely—a man could do much worse.
    What would she be like in his bed? Would she be as bold and