Too Wicked to Tame Read Free Page A

type she rolled her eyes at every Season. Of course she would have to sit closely to him in order to share a mount.
    Desperate circumstances called for desperate measures.
    Closing her eyes, she tried to ignore the firm chest at her back, the hard thighs beneath her. The solid arm holding her close. A slow trembling stole over her.
    “You’re cold,” his husky voice sounded in her ear, and he drew her closer, folding her into him and wrapping his cloak about the two of them, cocooning them together. Far more courtesy than she would have ascribed to the snarling wild man he had first appeared. “You have no business being out in this weather.”
    She stiffened in his arms, not caring for his chastisement.
    “You could catch ill,” he added.
    “I didn’t plan on getting caught in a storm,” she retorted, “but I’m hardly a frail creature.” Indeed not. She stood taller than most of her would-be suitors, was only thin and lacking in feminine curves—as Grandmother frequently criticized. “I have a healthy constitution. A bit of rain won’t hurt me.”
    “In case you haven’t noticed, this is more than a bit of rain.”
    “Wet and miserable as I am, it’s hard to ignore.”
    “Then you should have—”
    She twisted her head around, snapping, “I don’t need a lecture from someone who can’t exercise simple caution when riding his horse.”
    Portia faced front again, leaning forward as much as she could, too annoyed to let herself relax against his chest.
    Silence fell. No sound could be heard save the loud pelting of rain and sucking sound of hooves as they lifted from the quagmire beneath them.
    He tugged at her waist, forcing her back against him. “What’s your name?” he asked, his voice grudging, as if he resented asking, resented wanting to know.
    She answered in an equally grudging voice, “Portia.”
    No more than that. No need for him to know that a duke’s daughter sat on his lap. Soon they would part company, never to set eyes on each other again.
    “Portia,” he replied slowly, drawing out her name as if he tasted it on his tongue. “Different.”
    “My mother named me after Portia in Merchant of Venice…or Hamlet, depending what day you spoke with her…and her mood…and whether or not I happened to be in her favor at the time.”
    She couldn’t keep the bitterness from creeping into her voice. Thoughts of her mother did that to her, even when she willed them not to. Frowning, she wondered why she had volunteered so much to him. An uncouth stranger.
    “Not from these parts, are you, Portia?” he asked dryly.

    Ignoring his bold usage of her name, she suppressed her impulse to ask after his name and turned her gaze to the rain-soaked terrain, both wild and beautiful.
    “No,” she answered. Not that she would mind staying. Even awash in rain, this rugged land appealed to her. But this was no holiday. She had a potential husband to scare off—a task at which she particularly excelled. She need only open her mouth and expound at length upon what ever text she currently read. Be it an ancient treatise on Roman engineering, a dramatic work of Sophocles, or the latest commentary on female rights, no one chased away a prospective suitor better.
    “London?” he asked, his voice knowing, derision lacing his gravelly tones.
    “Obvious, is it?”
    “You’re not like chits in these parts.”
    If she had been inclined, she could have told him she wasn’t like London ladies either. Vowing never to be auctioned off in matrimony like a cow at market set her apart from the rest of the herd. Not such a difficult task, she had discovered. No one wanted an impoverished bluestocking—even one with an excellent pedigree.
    “Indeed,” she replied stiffly, certain he did not mean to compliment her.
    “Indeed,” he echoed, laughter lacing his voice. “Never met someone so haughty.”
    “Haughty?” she cried. “That’s rich. Especially coming from an arrogant brute like you.”
    “God,