Free 22 Nights by Linda Winstead Jones Page A

tied together like a team of horses, they were assigned their own small cottage, in which they were expected to live, cook, sleep, and clean. Together. Alone. The cottage was nothing special, but it was clean and solidly built. Bela had informed him that the cottage was used for infrequent visitors, and for the occasional marriage dissolution ceremony for a couple who lived too far from the village to be monitored in their home.
    The first evening had not been so bad thus far, Merin mused. He was comfortable enough, clean and dressed in dry clothes. It wasn’t his fault that Bela refused to take off her wet clothing. It wasn’t his fault that she preferred to let them dry on her body, it wasn’t his fault that she preferred to be miserable than to be naked in his presence.
    He could be patient. He could be very patient. She wasn’t going to spend the next twenty-one and a half days in those same clothes.
    For the short amount of time they were to remain married, they wouldn’t have much, as luxuries went. The rough cottage they’d been assigned was situated not far from Bela’s family home, with two smaller and one larger home between them. It consisted of one main room which was furnished with a table and two chairs, a small hearth for warmth and cooking, flint and steel for starting a fire, and a sagging bed that looked much too small for the two of them to share without things getting interesting in the night. There were two plates, a couple of mugs, a pot, and the basic utensils. He had a change of clothes and his weapons, and Bela had brought the same with her—one set of clothes much like the wet ones she currently wore and a fine-looking sword which she stored on a weapons rack on the wall. She handled the sword with reverence, she looked at the weapon as if it were made of solid gold. The grip of that sword gave Merin a bit of a chill at first glance. The stone there looked oddly like the crystal dagger which had dispatched Ciro and ended the war. He dismissed that thought as fancy and concentrated on helping Bela cook their stew for supper.
    Merin knew how to cook and was not afraid or ashamed of the chore, even though some found it unmanly. Not knowing how to prepare a decent meal would’ve made him helpless, dependent on others, and he refused to fall into that trap. The small kitchen area of their marital cottage was well stocked with common herbs, and he flavored the stew with them. Bela watched with some sign of interest. Heaven above, he knew more about cooking than she did. Why was he surprised? She seemed to shun all womanly attributes.
    While the stew simmered, they sat side by side in two small chairs and watched the flame lick at the pot that hung over the fire. Now and then Merin glanced at Bela. Yes, he was still angry with her, as angry as he had ever been with any living being who wasn’t an enemy, and yet he could not deny that she was tempting, in an odd way. Not that he would give in to such temptation, but still—it was perplexing.
    And entirely physical. She might swear that his attraction was one-sided, but he had felt her response when he touched her as they’d argued in the creek. If he wanted to seduce her—properly this time—he could do it. But he would not. Getting more involved with her than he already was would be a disaster. Bela was likely to be more trouble than she was worth.
    If he ever did marry, he’d be better off with one of Lady Cipriana’s simpering daughters than with this difficult woman. Bela was everything he did not want in a woman: she was difficult and demanding, and it was impossible to predict how she would react to any given situation. So why did he look at her and get hard? Why had he responded to her so fully this afternoon by the creek, when she was filthy and stubborn and insulting?
    He didn’t have to worry about anything happening. If he was so foolish as to try anything, she’d probably use her precious sword on him and make herself the widow