Free Lyon's Gift by Tanya Anne Crosby Page B

my friends whatever they wish for! If you wish for happiness,
Piers of Montgomerie, I shall find it for you and then wrap it up
in golden fleece and hand it to you upon a silver plate. What do
you think about that?”
    Piers had thought it a generous if pompous gesture,
but decided he had best find happiness for himself, as the ninth
son of a king—any king—was like never to sit upon any throne at
all, but the one in his own garderobe. He hadn’t said so, however.
He’d simply smiled his appreciation at his friend.
    Well, David of Scotia had won his throne, after all,
and he’d given Lyon the next best thing. He’d favored Lyon with
land: good rich Scot’s soil, upon which he could build his own
legacy. And suddenly, he was free to dream and plan.
    The woman sitting before him was a new
beginning.
    An alliance with her brothers would bear him roots
upon this land.
    He wanted that.
    He wanted her.
    It wasn’t merely that she was beautiful, though she
was. Wildly so—with her luscious red hair and cool green eyes, a
man could lose himself in those eyes. Aye, but she was more... she
was the first brick in his foundation.
    “ You are quiet,” he said at her
back.
    She stiffened before him, and her reaction made him
smile. She might not particularly like him, but she certainly
wasn’t indifferent toward him, and that knowledge pleased him. Love
and hate were not so disparate emotions that one could not be
manipulated into the other. They, at least, were extremes of
emotion, while indifference was another matter altogether; it was
the lack.
    “ And how would you have me sit
before you?” she snapped, not bothering to peer back at him.
“You’re a contemptible Sassenach who’s taking me against my
will!”
    Nay, he thought, she definitely wasn’t indifferent
toward him, and that pleased him immensely.
    Challenged him, even.
    Her animosity was like a gauntlet tossed at his
feet. He couldn’t walk away. Nor did he wish to, as he sensed the
prize was unparalleled.
    Nor had he lost a match as yet, and that knowledge
gave him satisfaction as it never had before. He didn’t fight
unfairly, but neither did he give any mercy. He fought to win.
    If it was the last thing he accomplished, he was
going to tame the little harridan sitting before him. He’d once
been told his tongue wove words of gold. No woman was immune to
praise. But his tongue had other talents that women never
protested.
    He gently lifted a strand of her hair in his hand.
She didn’t seem to feel it... or perhaps she simply allowed it.
    Soft.
    His fingers reveled in the texture, silky and thick.
He brought the strand to his nostrils and inhaled its scent. He
knit his brows. “Lovely,” he told her. “Quite lovely. But the scent
eludes me.”
    She didn’t thank him for the compliment, nor did she
seem to take the bait.
    “ I like it,” he
continued.
    “ I noticed,” she answered, quite
flippantly. “I can tell by the way you’ve buried your nose in it
like a mindless hound, Sassenach. Enjoying yourself?”
    Lyon couldn’t help but chuckle. Smart-arsed wench.
He moved closer, drawn to the softness of her tresses like a
lodestone to metal. “Mmmmm,” he murmured, “it rather seems I
am.”
    She shrugged away from him. “Do you mind not doing
that?” she asked, sounding vexed now. “If you must know ’tis a
rinse made from marrow. That’s what you smell. I use it ofttimes
after washing my hair, else I cannot comb it. It’s one of my
grandmother’s recipes. And it seems to have that same effect upon
all animals—dogs in particular!”
    He had to crush the urge to laugh. Was she calling
him a dog? Certainly an animal, at the very least.
    “ Does it now?”
    “ Aye!” she declared, turning and
jerking her hair from his grasp. “It does!” She turned her back to
him once more, leaning away from him, so as not to touch
him.
    Lyon grinned. She was not going to be an easy
victory, that was plain to see. But then... something worth