The Warrior's Winter Bride. Denise Lynn

her spine and loosen tiny wings to flutter low in her belly.

      The walls closed in around her, making her nearness to this man more acute, bringing their privacy more into focus. She raised a shaking hand to her chest, pressing it over her wildly pounding heart and struggled to draw in breath.

      Oh, yes, she should be very afraid of him, but more so of herself.

      One dark eyebrow hitched over a shimmering sapphire-hued eye, giving her the distinct impression that he somehow knew where her thoughts had flown. Horrified of what that might mean for her continued well-being, Isabella forced herself to look away.

      ‘I cannot judge whether her actions were appropriate or not. People do what they must to stay alive.’

      He rose and she felt his stare as he loomed over her. The very air around them crackled with tension. When she finally met his gaze, he suggested, ‘That is something you might want to remember.’

      It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he was threatening her, but she held her words inside. She wasn’t completely witless, of course he was threatening her, warning her that some day she, too, might need to do something dire to save herself. So she kept her thoughts and questions to herself, fearful of forcing his hand this soon.

      ‘I need to see to my ship and men. You stay here.’

      When she didn’t respond, he nudged the toe of her ruined slipper with the side of his foot. ‘Did you hear me?’

      ‘I am not deaf, you lack-witted oaf. I heard you.’ The moment the words were out, she winced. There was a time for mockery or name-calling, but this wasn’t the time to give her tongue free rein.

      He bent over. Then, unmindful of his shoulder, grasped her beneath her arms and hauled her up from the floor. When they were nose to nose, her feet dangling in the air, he asked, ‘Do you think it wise to bait an enemy when you are the prey?’

      ‘No.’ Thinking quickly, she reminded him of his obligation as her captor. ‘But as your hostage you need to keep me safe.’

      ‘I will soon be your husband and while I may be honour bound to keep you alive, your tender feelings concern me not at all.’ He dumped her on to his bed and came over her, resting most of his weight on his forearms. ‘Keep your wits about you, Isabella of Warehaven. Not all injuries can be seen.’

      While it was easy to ignore the beads of sweat on his brow attesting to the strain he’d placed on his body, it wasn’t as easy to ignore the evident strength in the hard muscled thighs trapping her securely on the bed.

      And even harder to ignore the implication of his threat.

      ‘Honour? You killed my father, that proves you have little honour, Dunstan.’ She turned her head away from the heat glimmering in his eyes.

      He drew her head back so she faced him and Isabella fought the dread overtaking her shaking limbs.

      His breath was hot against her cheek, his lips trailed flames across her skin. He paused, his mouth a hairsbreadth above her own, pinned her with his stare and asked, ‘Why should I show you more honour than Glenforde did when last he visited Dunstan?’

      Her chest tightened even more until her breaths were ragged gasps for air. His nearness, the physical contact of their bodies made thinking almost as impossible.

      ‘I am not Glenforde.’ It was the only answer that could find its way through the confusion and fear casting a fog over her thoughts.

      He rose to stand over her. ‘No you are not Glenforde. But you were to become his wife and you are here. Forget not your place, Isabella.’

      Silently, she watched him exit the cabin. Relief washed through her, making her limp with near exhaustion.

      Even though he’d told her that Glenforde had murdered someone on Dunstan—someone young, a child—she had no way of knowing if the crime was real or imagined. She couldn’t help but wonder what had held Dunstan’s temper in place. Had it been her reminder that she wasn’t Glenforde? Or had he somehow sensed her confused fear and relented?

      This was not a man to take for granted. He was more of a threat than she’d first thought. This man, above all others, seemed to have the power to reduce her to a mindless muddle with little more than a look.

      She couldn’t begin to imagine how she would have reacted had he carried through with his threat. Would she have fought him with every fibre of her being?

      Or would she have followed the whispered longings of her traitorous body?

      The only thing she knew for certain was that she needed to take charge of her wayward emotions before she became the greater threat to her well-being. Otherwise, she would bring about her own downfall.

       Chapter Five

      Richard leaned against a timber beam long enough to catch his breath before climbing the ladder to the open aft deck above. The hardest part of this venture was to have been the actual kidnapping and making a hasty retreat towards Dunstan unscathed.

      His throbbing shoulder reminded him that he hadn’t escaped unscathed. But at this moment, his injury was the least of his concerns. What bothered him was the uneasy feeling that there was more to his fragmented dreams than he could fathom.

      He knew from the unquenchable dryness of his mouth that Matthew had drugged him. The lingering bitter taste meant the man had probably broken into their limited stores of opium. While the concoction was a pain reliever of miraculous proportion, it left the patient’s mind foggy for days afterwards.

      Still, the memory of a soft, warm body next to him on the pallet was too vivid to have been only a dream. Why would his mind have conjured gentle hands and a hushed soothing whisper to ease him when the pain grew close to unbearable?

      His past experience with women hadn’t led him to believe they were gentle or soothing with any except their offspring. Not for one heartbeat could he imagine Agnes easing anyone’s pain but her own.

      Yet in his dreams it had been a woman. There was only one woman aboard this ship—Isabella of Warehaven. Had she soothed him, gentled his need to rage against the agony chasing him?

       Impossible.

      None of it made any sense. And it was that unexplained senselessness that had him worried that marrying this woman would prove more difficult than the act of capturing her.

      Why couldn’t she be a few years younger or a great many years older? Either one would have made her less attractive in his mind, drugged or not.

      Unfortunately, she was a woman full grown and too obviously aware of the untried desires teasing her body. Going into a battle without armour and weapons would be less dangerous than being in her company overlong.

      When he’d loomed over her, threatening her, he’d hoped to see a glimmer of fear. Even though that had been his intent, it wasn’t fear shimmering in her wary gaze—it had been an awareness of him, followed by curiosity and then confusion about what she felt.

      Once he’d recognised her emotions, his body had threatened to betray him. The vision of their naked limbs entwined as he brought her across the threshold into womanhood had nearly been his undoing.

      Nobody would have stopped him. They were soon to be wed. Had he been physically able, he could easily have taken her, shown her the pleasures of the flesh and then called it revenge for what her betrothed had done to his family. And no one would have faulted him.

      But Isabella of Warehaven was not the object of his revenge. She was only the means to an end. He needed to remember that.

      This desire, this unbidden lust for her was nothing more than a drug-induced torment that could and would fade with time. He would simply need to keep a tight rein on his desires until that time came.

      Richard sighed and leaned on the rail for