Page 41 of The Bodyguard Who Came in from the Cold
Her head dropped back, and he saw that the anger had drained from her face. “But I don’t want you hurt in this mess,” she whispered.
He gave her a little shake. “What mess? Does it have something to do with the letter you received today?”
She pressed her lips together.
Gareth searched her face, thinking she was too stubborn. “I overheard the men say it was from Peter Fitzwilliam.”
“He was sending greetings from my brothers,” she said in an emotionless voice. “That is all.”
He wanted to ask what kind of a man Fitzwilliam was, why she’d almost married him. But a tear fell from her eye and ran down her cheek, and he suddenly felt an overwhelming need to protect her from whatever she feared. She would soon be his wife, he told himself. Nothing would harm her. He drew her against his chest and put his arms around her.
Her dark curls seemed to wrap themselves around his arms. The merest thought of another man near her made him primitive with anger. He alone would win her.
Her hands slid up his back, and in a heartbeat, his possessiveness blazed into passion. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, her breath fanned his neck, their thighs brushed together. She suddenly looked up at him, eyes wide, lips parted. He could see her moist tongue, could imagine the feel of it rasping against his skin. He pressed his lips to her temple. With a soft gasp, she arched against him. He wanted to grasp her hips and pull her even harder against him.
He waited an endless moment, his lips just above hers, both of them breathing raggedly. He needed to plunder her mouth, to lose himself in the mystery that was Margery.
But it was too soon. A hurried kiss was not in the careful plan he had created to win her to wife.
She broke from his arms, stumbling back until she bumped into the table. “Forgive me,” she whispered, tears etching her cheeks. “It is cruel of me to use you for my own comfort.”
“Margery, ’tis my fault.” He reached out a hand.
“No, no, Gareth, it isn’t you, never think that. ’Tis all me. Now do you see why I pray?”
She ran from the room. He felt satisfied that she turned to him for comfort, but frustrated that he still hadn’t discovered her secrets.
A shadow suddenly darkened the doorway, and he looked up. Wallace Desmond stood there, his expression serious and cold.
12
Gareth waited in resignation for Wallace to speak.
Wallace stepped into the room and closed the door. He eyed the books on the table, then Gareth. “I didn’t know an embrace was one of the duties of a personal guard.”
“This is none of your concern, Wallace,” he said in a low voice.
“Then I’ll make it my concern. What is going on?”
Gareth refused to answer. He walked past Wallace, but the man caught his arm.
“You have become close to Margery, Beaumont,” Wallace said, his narrowed blue eyes determined. “This is not a crime. But I don’t like secrets being kept from me—or her.”
Gareth gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. To trust Wallace with the truth went against everything he’d experienced in a life full of betrayals. Yet the man had not betrayed him so far, and he could have made trouble for Gareth if he wanted to.
“I have decided I want to marry her,” he said stiffly.
Wallace released his arm, then rolled his eyes. “Then just ask her! Why do you keep this to yourself?”
“Besides the danger to Margery, there is something she’s not telling me, some secret I can’t trust,” Gareth said slowly. “How can I announce my changed intentions, and have her include me with all the other men she distrusts? Hell, I’m landless and close to poverty—two attributes that make me unsuitable to a lady.” He was powerless to stop the words pouring from him. “She and her family sent me away when I was a child because I wasn’t the right sort of ‘friend’ for her. She needs to learn to trust me again. Then I know she’ll want to marry me.”
Gareth wouldn’t blame the man if he ran out laughing, if he told the entire castle about Gareth’s need to marry into a family that had rejected him.
Wallace gave him a crooked smile. “I’ve never seen this side of you. Did it make you feel better to confide in me?”
“No.”
Wallace laughed. “I swear it helps. You talk about Margery not trusting you, but you can’t trust anyone, can you?”
