Free Temptress by Lisa Jackson Page A

him, intent on confronting him, on telling him what she suspected, nay, knew to be the truth. . . . Oh, she’d thought she’d come away from the meeting with a shred of dignity, a bit of pride. And she’d been mistaken.
    That’s what you get for trusting a rogue, for giving your heart away so recklessly.
    Now, lying upon her bed, her jaw tightening and tears threatening her eyes, she forced her mind back. She’d cried her last drop for that coward.
    And what about you? Why had you not told him the truth when you had the chance? Were you not just as cowardly as he? Why did you give him the chance to flee?
    She gnashed her teeth at the unanswered questions that had chased after her for what seemed a lifetime. Had she secretly known that he would abandon her and had she tested him, unwilling to force him to her, keeping her lips sealed and waiting for him to leave her? So that she could chase after him, find a horse, hop on the beast’s broad back and . . . and . . .
    She squeezed her eyes shut. A hot blush of embarrassment flooded her face. What good was it now to think of what had happened or what could have been? Blinking rapidly, she banished the wayward images, refused to conjure up any forlorn, self-pitying feelings for herself. She’d survived his betrayal. Had become stronger for it.
    As it turned out, the beast had done her a favor!
    What if the near-dead man is proved to be Carrick? What will you do?
    ’Twould serve the blackheart right if she was to return his lying hide to Lord Graydynn. Wybren was less than one day’s journey on horseback, even shorter if one took the old road and forded the river near Raven’s Crossing. Graydynn might pay well to have the traitor returned.
    Elsewise, she could, as Sir Alexander suggested, jail him in the dungeon. Let him suffer a while. ’Twould serve the scoundrel right!
    Nay.
    She sighed at her silly fantasies.
    She knew better than to try to get back at a man who had wronged her. ’Twas petty. And foolish. Besides, the beaten man was most likely not Carrick but a simple thief who had been attacked on the road.
    And yet . . . there was something about the stranger that jogged her memory and caused her pulse to quicken.
    “Idiot,” she chastised herself as she pulled the bedclothes up to her neck, causing the dog to reposition himself. Before she closed her eyes, she glanced around this chamber that had been her own for less than a year. Sometimes . . . ’twas silly, she knew, but . . . sometimes she felt as if she was being watched, as if the room itself had eyes.
    By the gods, what was she thinking? ’Twas only her tired mind playing tricks upon her. Besides, ’twas something she could not voice, for if she did, her brother would surely take away her privilege of running this keep. She’d had to beg Kelan, who ruled over several baronies, including Penbrooke, to give her the chance to become the lady of Calon. Now, if Kelan knew she was thinking the castle was haunted, or someone was glowering at her from the shadows, or that there was a chance Carrick of Wybren was sleeping in a bed across the hallway, Kelan would surely interfere and, mayhap, think again about letting a woman be in charge of this castle. Mayhap Kelan would order Tadd, who was off fighting for the king, back to rule. Perhaps he would want Bryanna, sent to Calon as Morwenna’s companion on the hope the girl would grow up, to return to Penbrooke to be with him and his wife, Kiera. Kelan was still the ultimate ruler.
    The man lying across the corridor is not Carrick. Do not be fooled!
    Muttering angrily at herself, she dared not face the demeaning truth that in her heart of hearts, she hoped the beaten man was Carrick of Wybren, that he would recover and realize how far she had come from that silly little girl who had loved him so wildly and that she was now a woman who was his equal, who would no longer leap at the chance to be with him, who would now never willingly abandon all others for the