Free A Knight In Her Bed by Evie North Page B

watered and she had to physically stop herself jumping up and cramming the meat into her mouth. After a moment of silence, that husky voice she was beginning to know, said, “Will you eat, Juliet?”
    She opened her eyes. She had shut them to block out the sight of the food. He was watching her with a faint twist of his mouth, a smile on the good side and a grimace on the other. She thanked him gravely and took some of the meat and tore off some of the coarse bread, trying not to bolt it down like a hungry animal.
    “More wine?” He was holding out the jug, and she realised with surprise that she had emptied the goblet. He filled it and went to sit at the table, not eating himself, just watching her.
    It occurred to her that he wasn’t behaving as she’d expected. True, he wasn’t a common soldier; she could already tell he was a man of some education, breeding and refinement. But in Juliet’s experience that meant little when that man was alone with a young and not unattractive woman in a tent. He hadn’t pounced on her or forced her down onto the bed; he hadn’t made suggestive remarks or offered her coins for her body. He’d been kind and gentlemanly and his behaviour was having a disturbing effect upon her, and even more disturbingly she kept remembering where his hand had held her breast and the firm brush of his thumb over her nipple.
    She ’d had lovers, the latest being one of the other travelling minstrels, but that was nearly a year ago and since then she’d been chaste. Henry had been a little rough and too eager, attacking her body like a juicy slab of beef, but all the same she missed the closeness, the feel of a body pressed skin to skin with hers. It had made her feel alive, and suddenly she wanted to feel that again. She wanted to touch and taste a man’s skin.
    This man’s skin.
    Startled at her own thoughts, Juliet looked up and found his eyes upon her. They were pale. Blue? No, grey, silver grey. She wondered whether his mouth would be rough against hers, where the scar crossed it, and whether he would be eager like Henry, or practised and bored, having had so many women.
    Suddenly it didn’t matter.
    She was alone and lonely and he was well made and generous. She could take what she wanted and be on her way, with a few pleasant memories to take with her. It wouldn’t mean anything. It wasn’t as if he could touch her heart .
    “Will I have to pay for my meal?” she said, her voice sing song from the wine, but she wasn’t drunk. Rather the wine had made her see her life for what it was, and her loneliness was suddenly acute.
    He sipped from his goblet and for a moment she swore his hand was shaking . But it could not be; it must be a trick of the light. “The food is free, Juliet, but if you wish to stay
longer . . . ?”
    She stood up, smoothing down her dull green skirts. Her dark hair was loose about her shoulders and she twisted it and tossed it back, out of the way. Juliet was a small woman and curvy in all the right places. She had admirers, many of them, but she was choosy. She could count her lovers on one hand and there had never been a man who captured her heart.
    Slowly, watching him, she made her approach. He sat perfectly still, observing her, but there was a gleam in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Standing before him, she hesitated a moment, suddenly doubting herself. Perhaps he didn’t like women. There were men like that. But as soon as she placed her hand lightly upon his shoulder he pulled her down onto his lap, and she forgot everything in the heat of desire.
    His mouth was bumpy where the scar crossed it, but she hardly noticed in the bolt of hot lust his kiss produced in her. Her blood burned, her heart pounded, and she felt completely alive for the first time in a long time. He was clasping her hip and as she moaned and pressed closer, he pulled her around so that her thighs straddled his on the chair. Now she was facing him directly, and he ran his