Instead, she stood docilely as he dismounted, shivering with both fear and the cold. He grasped her arm when he had handed the reins of his horse off to a squire and led her inside. Releasing her once they had reached the great fire at one end of the great hall, he removed his gauntlets and finally his helmet.
Bronwyn stared at him with a mixture of emotions, her mind chaotic. “You are … you are.”
“Marcus Raventhorne,” he finished for her, amusement gleaming in his eyes.
Bronwyn blinked, feeling a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. “I thought … you look....”
He caught her face, forcing her to look up at him. “You do not know me?”
His expression was harsh with some emotion she had difficulty interpreting and Bronwyn felt again an upsurge of hopefulness. “Do I?” she asked a little breathlessly.
His gaze flickered over her face and he swallowed thickly. “You told me you loved me,” he said in a low, husky voice as he stepped closer.
Tears sprang into Bronwyn’s eyes. “Nightshade?” she whispered, torn by the fear that she was wrong. “But … I don’t understand.”
His lips twisted wryly. “I will be vastly disappointed, lady, if you tell me this face is less to your liking than the beast I once was,” he murmured, dipping his head to cover her mouth with his own.
Bronwyn flinched, but the moment she felt the heat of his mouth, the moment his taste and scent enveloped her, all doubts fled. She swayed against him, kissing him back with all the longing and passion she had felt for him from the first moment he had touched her.
She was disappointed when he ended the kiss until he pulled her snuggly against his length, holding her tightly. “I hope this means that I was not precipitate in bringing a priest with me,” he murmured against her hair.
Bronwyn pulled away enough to look up at him. “We’re to be married?” she asked a little dazedly.
He smiled wryly. “By your leave, little rose--or without if needs be. I’ll be damned if I will let another have you.”
She smiled up at him. “You will not find me unwilling, my lord.”
It was late into the night as Bronwyn lay curled contentedly next to her new husband before the questions that had gathered in her mind finally made it to her lips.
“Tell me,” she murmured as she traced circles along his broad chest and followed the path with her lips, “everything.”
“I would far rather make love to my wife than talk.”
Bronwyn was instantly torn, because that sounded a good deal more appealing to her, also, now that he’d brought it up, but she was still curious. “Tell me first.”
Uttering a long suffering sigh, he tucked her more tightly against his body. “How I came to be a man? Or how I managed to sack Raventhorne so easily when it is reputedly a nearly impregnable keep?”
“Both.”
He rolled, pushing her onto her back. “I am Marcus Raventhorne--the Raventhorne who built this keep, the man cursed to guard it for eternity--unless I found a woman who could love me as I was. You broke the curse. What I had never considered since the possibility seemed remote, to say the least, that any woman would love me as I was, was that it would still be nigh impossible for me to win the lady I loved.
“Gaelzeroth had miscalculated, however. I not only knew where he kept his wealth hidden. I knew about the secret passages beneath the castle, because I had them built. And thus, without any intention of helping me whatsoever, he gave me the means to hire mercenaries to take back what he had stolen from me.”
Bronwyn sighed pleasurably as he nuzzled her neck and then traced a path to one pert nipple to tease it. “The king…?” she questioned hesitantly.
“Will be pleased enough when I pay him a handsome fine and swear fealty to him,” he said dismissively.
He sounded certain. She could not help but think he was right, and yet she was still afraid her happiness would be snatched away from her. Lifting a hand, she stroked it lovingly through his hair. “The curse was broken because I fell in love with you?” she asked tentatively.
Marcus lifted his head. “The curse was broken because the woman I loved fell in love with me,” he corrected her.
The End
Other Titles by Julia Keaton:
Succumb To Me
Their Wicked Ways
Stranger in my Bed
His Forbidden Touch
Ravished
Dark Immortal Page 7