Free Rexanne Becnel by The Mistress of Rosecliffe Page A

the sheer cliff to the wall where a pennant flapped in the strong sea breeze. The breeze played in the loose curls around her face, and molded her full skirts against her hips and legs. She was taller than her mother, he noticed. The top of her head came even with his chin, and there was a dried petal caught in a curl near her brow.
    He started to reach for it, then stopped. What was he doing?
    When she did not flinch away from him, however, he could not resist. He caught the bit of pink between his finger and thumb, then slowly slid the dried blossom free.
    He saw her swallow. He saw curiosity and fear and anticipation in the endless depths of her eyes, and again desire reared its demanding head. He wanted her. That she was a FitzHugh bore no weight. He wanted her.
    “Will you be going now?” he murmured, at the same time demanding with his eyes that she stay.
    “I … I thought … I thought we might have another lesson.” She touched the gittern he held. “And I can show you what I have already learned.”
    Elation surged through Rhys. “As you wish.” He glanced up at the wall again. No guard had yet looked down to see them together. He could as easily drown her or kidnap her—or ravish her—as give her musical instruction. Were those guards fools to have so little concern for her safety?
    But that was good, he reminded himself. That was to his advantage, and he meant to make use of it.
    “Let us sit,” he said, lowering himself to the protection of the boulder. She sat, too, close enough to touch. But he did
not touch her. Their legs extended side by side in the sand. Her feet were bare; her toes pink and soft.
    He had to put the gittern across his lap to disguise the proof of his lust.
    He cleared his throat. “You’ve put your first lesson to good use. Now I’ll show you more, a chord to use in tandem with those others.”
    “My fingertips are sore,” she admitted.
    “Let me see.”
    She extended her hand palm up. He cupped it in his. It was the wrong thing to do.
    Or perhaps it was the right thing. For though her touch lit a torch inside him and made him want to kiss her reddened fingertips and run his tongue in long, leisurely circles around her palm, it also gave him a brutal reminder of the vast chasm between them. Her hand was small and delicate and soft, the hand of the pampered daughter of a people who sought to rule his land. By contrast, his hand was big and hard, callused and coarsened by years of fighting.
    He could crush her hand in his. He could crush her. He could force her to submit to him, and one day he would.
    But there was no advantage in rushing things, he told himself. Indeed, there was pleasure to be had in discovering how far he could entice her. Just how good and obedient was this daughter FitzHugh had raised?
    He ran one finger lightly over her sore fingertips. “Perhaps we should wait until tomorrow for the next lesson,” he said.
    “Oh, no. I can manage,” Isolde said.
    Across the short space that separated them he stared at her and raised her hand between them. “Are you certain?”
    Had she looked away, he could have controlled himself better. Had she lowered her eyes and drawn her hand free of his, he would have picked up the gittern and begun the lesson she wanted. But she did not look away, nor seek to free her delicate hand from his.
    And though she did not speak, he heard the request she made. There was a different lesson she wished to learn, on another subject entirely.
    But he could teach her that lesson also, and very well. So, though it was madness, though it was not what he’d intended,
at least not so soon, Rhys raised her hand to his lips. Then staring deep into her clear-water eyes, he pressed a kiss to her palm. Not a courtier’s kiss. Not a suitor’s kiss. But a lover’s kiss, meant to arouse.
    Meant to seduce.

SIX
    AT THE TOUCH OF REEVIUS’S LIPS TO THE CENTER OF HER hand, Isolde thought she would faint. Her stomach lurched, curling into a knot,