Free Her Lord and Protector (formerly titled On Silent Wings) by Pam Roller

another. Since they no doubt socialized within the same circles, Wiltshire
would be able to keep her in the lifestyle to which she’d grown accustomed.
    She probably
couldn’t wait to return to fashionable London and its parties. As someone’s
property in marriage, Katherine’s punishment for her father’s crimes would
become invalid, and Wiltshire would treat her well.
    Yes. Alex had
done his part and could now let her go.
    He glanced up at
the top of his favorite hill, and then reigned in sharply.
    There she sat,
still and pensive, the wind caressing her long, beautiful brown tresses.
    After a moment,
he opened his mouth and gasped, and realized he’d stopped breathing.
    She reached up
and back, and brought her hair around to one shoulder. Despite the bulky
bandages covering her hands, the movement was graceful and feminine, and it
captivated him.
    He hoped she
wouldn’t look to her left and see him watching her because he knew he would
continue staring. He simply couldn’t look away.
    Then, she
lowered her head, and her shoulders shook.
    God’s nails. Was
she weeping?
    Alex’s hands
tightened on the reins as pangs of guilt slammed into him. Her tears were his
fault. She had lost her voice, her family, her home, and whatever dowry she’d
had, and all he had done was to add to her misery by making her feel as if she
were nothing but a burden to him. He’d even voiced this to Robert within her
hearing. It was probably what had made her wander around and become trapped in
her closet.
    When had he
become such an insensitive, heartless man?
    Her father had
been a spy, yes, and his death in the fire put the burden of punishment on
Katherine to bear. But did she know what he’d done? Or was she pretending
ignorance? Should Alex find out or just leave her alone?
    While he
pondered what to do, his horse whickered to another in the field nearby.
    “Ah, Neos, you
cannot be quiet, can you,” he murmured, and patted the horse on his silky gray
neck as he looked back up at Katherine.
    She had seen him
and jumped to her feet. Hiking her skirts to her shapely ankles, she descended
the hill.
    Alex trotted
Neos toward her. “Katherine.”
    She stopped and
looked up at him. Her face was pink from weeping, and in her eyes shone a
tender vulnerability that twisted his heart into a knot.
    He dismounted,
unable to take his eyes off the sunlit copper glints in her hair. “You are the
first woman since my mother to climb that hill. I go up there when I need to think.”
    Katherine,
looking tired and forlorn, nodded her understanding.
    “You’ve lost a
great deal.” Alex stared at the ground and struggled for words that he’d never
spoken to anyone. “I also know of grief. Last year, I lost my wife when she
killed herself.”
    A guarded
concern, and puzzlement, flickered in her eyes.
    He went on, the
words falling from his lips like a halting confession. “My parents died under
the hands of Cromwell’s men when I was twelve.” Alex looked at an area of grass
just beyond the drive. “There they were murdered. Then, one of the men came for
me. While the others watched, he beat me and threw me onto my parents’ bodies.
I suppose he thought I would die.”
    Katherine stood
very still, deep compassion now evident in the softness of her lips, the moist
intensity of her eyes.
    Alex touched the
white scar along his jaw. “He wore a ring with some hard edge that cut me.
Perhaps that saved my life, because my face was covered with blood.”
    Why was he
telling her all this? These memories only brought forth the surge of anger that
he tried to keep locked up. But now it was too late, and his long-buried fury
spilled forth. His voice became a growl in its intensity and he clenched his
hands. “I have always wanted to find that man. I want to find his family and
make him watch while I run them all through with my sword. And then I want to
kill him .”
    Katherine
stumbled back with a frightened grimace, tears glistening in her wide