Free A Kind of Magic by Susan Sizemore

straightforward, honest person. She always tried to do what she said she’d do.
    She was terrified of going to bed with someone, especially a stranger who looked so much like the one man she thought she could love. Not only wasn’t Rowan Murray anything like Toby, he was the enemy who’d backed her into a corner where she was forced to face her worst fears.
    She stomped her foot emphatically. She didn’t think of herself as the foot-stomping type but under the circumstances the physical release of energy seemed to help. “I will not think of Rowan Murray as the enemy.” People in the hall stopped what they were doing to openly stare at her as she spoke but she ignored them .
    Even if he is the enemy , she added to herself, I have to find some way to get along with him .
    The fear had been with her for a long time even if she hadn’t realized that’s what her avoiding men was about until now. Rowan Murray hadn’t caused the initial problem. She’d always been awkward and self-conscious and uncomfortable with her over-endowed body. Her mother had always said she’d outgrow it if she’d just let herself. Maddie supposed she was a slow learner about some things, because twenty-eight seemed awful late to finally start coming out of adolescent shock.
    She went back to pacing.
    Despite the fire raging in the central hearth, the place was cold. The clothes she’d been given consisted of several layers of wool over a linen shift. This helped insulate her body from the frigid air but her hands were cold as ice. She also noticed that she had them balled into tense fists at her side. She wished she had pockets to tuck them into but since pockets hadn’t been invented by this era, she tucked her hands into her wide sleeves and held her arms close to her body as she walked. It made her feel like a nun.
    Nothing new about that.
    Feeling like a nun wasn’t going to do her any good when Rowan Murray demanded his conjugal rights though.
    She stopped as a ripple of shock ran down her spine. A slow, wicked grin spread across her face.
    If he wasn’t the cause of the problem, maybe he was the cure.
    “Conjugal rights work both ways,” she said. And went in search of Rowan Murray before she lost her nerve.
    46

    A Kind of Magic

Chapter Eight
    “What?”
    “Right now.”
    “In the daylight?”
    “No, in your bedroom. Let’s go.”
    Rowan looked from the long-fingered female hand resting on his arm to the priest sitting across the table. Far from being outraged at Maddie having barged into his workroom and demanding that Rowan perform an act of sexual congress right now , Father Andrew was smirking. There would be no help from that quarter obviously.
    He looked back at Maddie. She was all bright-eyed and flushed of cheek. Her words to him had been rushed, emphatic, but he sensed that this demand was not easy for her to make. He didn’t think it was lust that made her eyes blaze but terror.
    “You don’t want me, woman.”
    “You want me,” she countered.
    “Aye,” he agreed, though he blushed to say so before the priest. “That I do. In my own time and way,” he added as he tried to control the eagerness that sprang to life within him.
    She took a step back and looked him over with an eye as critical as any expert herdsman would a head of cattle at a sale. Having looked at her much the same way yesterday, Rowan balled his fists at his sides and endured her scrutiny, though it left him feeling more naked than if she’d actually stripped him bare.
    “You’re not ugly,” was her final judgment.
    Which was not the same as saying she craved to touch him and be touched by him.
    “It wouldn’t matter how I look,” he reminded her. “I’m still your husband.”
    She put her hands on her hips. “Which means you have the right to sleep with me any time you want, right?”
    “That is indeed his right, my child,” Father Andrew answered for Rowan.
    Maddie looked at the priest. “Well I think it ought to be my right