Free Tempt Me With Kisses by Margaret Moore Page A

friend for last, fearing that Dafydd might say something undignified or tell some outrageous tale from his childhood, like the time he had gotten his head stuck in a bucket. Now, he thought they could all use a little touch of levity, and it might help lessen his smoldering ire. “Fiona, this is Dafydd. He is my bailiff, and my friend.”
    Dafydd grinned and bowed low. “A pleasure it is to meet you, Fiona MacDougal,” he said, sincerity in every word.
    Fiona must have heard that, too, for her haughty grandeur fled, and with it, the last of Caradoc’s anger. Now she was again the woman in his solar. The woman he had kissed.
    The woman who had so eagerly kissed him back.
    “I am pleased to meet you, too, Dafydd,” she said.
    “If you’re going to live here married to this shaggy fellow, you had best know my full name. Dafydd-y-Trwyn.” He tapped his nose and his brown eyes shone with mirth. “Dafydd the Nose, that is, because God saw fit to give me enough for two.”
    Fiona clearly didn’t know what to make of that.
    “Of course, the women know that it means I have enough for two of something else,” he said with a sly wink.
    As Fiona colored, Caradoc wished the stones beneath his feet would heave, splinter, open up and swallow him—aye, and Dafydd, too.
    “Dafydd,” he growled, his tone warning that his friend had gone too far. Relief from anger and tension was one thing; such rude implications were something else again.
    “I thought it was a man’s ears that indicated that,” Fiona remarked, apparently gravely serious. “Yours seem quite small, although very attractive.”
    Then she turned and tucked Caradoc’s hair behind his right ear, her touch so much like a caress, his whole body warmed with it. Her lovely lips turned up into a devilish smile that made his heartbeat skip. “Whereas my lord’s seem … quite substantial.”
    Caradoc didn’t know what he felt more: shock, distress, pride, or glee to see the look of stunned surprise on Dafydd’s face.
    Countless times he had yearned to pay Dafydd back for all his teasing, and here she was doing it for him.
    He could not let her have all the fun.
    “You’ve hurt his feelings, Fiona,” he noted, apparently equally serious. “Proud of his prowess with women is our Dafydd.”
    “I can see why women would like him,” she said as if Dafydd wasn’t there. “He is a very charming fellow. Impertinent, of course, but one cannot take offense at what so merry a man says, even if it is most improper.”
    Caradoc wanted to laugh out loud. He wanted to grab her and kiss her. Passionately.
    “God save me, boy, she is a wonder,” Dafydd muttered, his face so red, Caradoc almost pitied him. He might have, had Dafydd not embarrassed him a hundred times or more.
    And Dafydd’s heartfelt words were a great compliment, whether Fiona knew it or not.
    “We had best return to the high table. Father Rhodri is starting to fidget,” he said, moving before he started grinning like a drunkard getting free ale.
    But by the saints, he hadn’t felt this lighthearted in months.
    Fiona was indeed a wonder. He could hardly wait to be alone with her again. To stifle his building laughter by kissing her. To tuck her marvelous thick hair behind her shapely ears with a similar caress, and to let that caress linger and slip lower…
    When they had reached their places, Father Rhodri stepped forward to say the grace. As everyone bowed their heads expectantly, Caradoc saw the look on the priest’s face and all propensity to laughter fled. Dreading what was to come, he readied himself as a warrior before battle, for he was sure it would be a challenge to keep his emotions under control as Father Rhodri spoke.
    “Oh, God and St. David, patron saint of this blessed land of Wales,” the priest began in a mournful voice more suited to a funeral oration. “Look down with mercy on all here as we prepare to partake of Your blessed bounty. Forgive decisions made in haste, based on