Free Mary Reed McCall by The Maiden Warrior Page B

that’s why I’m here. Beginning tomorrow, you’ll be meeting with one of my most trusted female servants for an hour each morning to practice some of the skills you’ll need to make this pretense plausible. Then you and I will meet each afternoon to practice some more.”
    She stared at him, certain he’d lost what little mind he possessed.
    “This had better be your idea of a jest.”
    “I’m afraid not. ’Tis imperative that all who do not know the truth about you believe you to be as I’ve described.” His expression was deadly serious. “I’ll not risk innocent lives by allowing anyone to suspect who you really are and to get word of it to the king.”
    “Not to mention the difficulties it would raise with your beloved Helene and her father if it was discovered that you were secretly harboring the Dark Legend in your home,” she added, flashing him a sarcastic glare.
    He had the good grace to look embarrassed. “That is another issue entirely. What’s important now is ensuring that everyone believes you to be my distant cousin, come to live with me through the tragic loss of your family.”
    Blast him, but he was persistent. And a lout. A demanding, unbearable lout, to try to make her cooperate with this. It wasn’t enough to force her into wearing silly gowns and veils. Nay, he wanted her humiliation to be more complete. He wanted her to behave in ways that she remembered only from the distant reaches of her memory, when she was first training to be the Legend. Ways she’d been punished for indulging.
    Ways she’d learned to despise.
    A suffocating feeling swept up to grip her throat, and she swallowed hard against it, battling for control. Damn him to bloody hell…
    “I can’t do it,” she finally muttered. “’Twill have to be enough that I dress accordingly.”
    “You will do it, Gwynne. Curse it, you must,” he said, his voice suddenly gone husky with some unspoken feeling.
    “Don’t you see? Even with my men’s loyalty, you are in danger of being discovered here. I’m trying to protect you from what may happen if you don’t do as I ask.” When she tried to push by him again, he gripped both of her arms firmly but gently, almost as if he were going to embrace her, murmuring, “Damn it, Gwynne, you have to listen to me.”
    She froze, the contact seeming to scorch through her shirt to singe the vulnerable flesh beneath with his heat. Flashes of something, muddled pictures of some sort, shot through her brain, taking her breath away before they faded. Slowly, she dragged her stunned gaze from his hands to his face.
    He’d touched her before. Even without a conscious memory of it, she knew it deep in her bones.
    But no one touched her like this. No one. Except for the occasional brief grips she exchanged with Marrok, few dared to try, because she never allowed it.
    Most thought her reserve was due to her status as the Legend. After all, she was a myth in their midst, far above the reach and comfort of common folk. But it wasn’t that. Nay, never that. It was because it hurt too much. Being touched in kindness, in friendship—in anything but cold, hard anger—hurt far too much. It reminded her of all she’d never have, all she’d forsaken in order to be the savior to her people.
    Concern and love were not for one such as she. She was built to fight and kill. That was all.
    But this…this remembered touch…
    As if coming out of a dream, she wrenched herself free of Aidan’s grip, quelling the waves of almost painful sensation his touch had evoked. She didn’t trust herself to speak, her throat felt so tight, but she forced herself to anyway, knowing that he’d not let her escape to the cleansing ritual of her training until she answered him.
    “I’ll think about it,” she managed to say, her voice gone as husky as his had been. Then she shoved harder to push past him, desperate to get away from the confusing feelings sweeping through her. He let her go, and she took in deep