A lady of her rank did not desire a lowly bodyguard! And yet it seemed that this lady did.
“Melina,” his husky voice was a groan. “So beautiful . . .”
In a moment she’d be lying spread beneath him.
Her panicked elbow found his solar plexus and he huffed out a breath. Melina took advantage of the slackening of his arms to wriggle free, and then backed away a yard or two. Rumpled, her fair hair coming down, her blue eyes flashing. This was better. She felt back in control now, and suddenly she was angry.
“A bodyguard does not dare to touch a lady,” she said in a low voice. “My father will arrest you and have you thrashed for this.”
He stared at her a moment, absently rubbing the spot where her elbow had struck him, and there was no fear or remorse in his face whatsoever. In fact there was a glint to his eyes that told her he’d enjoyed their tussle and a smirk to his lips that suggested he might be about to do it again.
She mightn’t escape the next time.
She might not want to.
With a soft cry Melina spun around and ran through the garden, her skirts fluttering about her, and her long fair hair tumbling from its braids. Her gaze was fixed on the castle door that led to safety from the urgent sensations rampaging through her body, from the man watching her go, and from the knowledge that beat in her temples like a drum that she must go to Lord Saunders a virgin or the alliance with her father would be voided.
In the airless garden a blackbird began to sing, the sound sweet and pure, and suddenly tears were stinging Melina’s eyes. She was in a snare. Even while her lips were burning from Grendell’s kisses and her body was aching for his touch, she knew he was forbidden to her. Her destiny was already written.
Life was unfair. She’d seen the way the serving girls looked at Grendell. If she were a lowly maid she could have had him in her arms by now. In her bed. She could love whomever she wished and it would not matter.
Once, last year, she had come upon one of the maids and a groom, lying entangled in a stall of the stables, their bodies joined and arching in intense pleasure as they rutted. The image had stayed with her, and now it returned in vivid detail, except the man with thrusting buttocks was Grendell and the woman beneath him, moaning in her pleasure, was Melina.
“Melina!” Her father’s shout as she ran into the castle made her jump guiltily. He was coming toward her, the beamed ceiling of the great hall rising high above him, the walls crowded with sharp and nasty looking weapons and wild animal heads. Her father appeared worried, as he often did these days, and when Melina moved to curtsey he caught her arm and hurried her toward the curling stone stairs that led to the upper chambers of the castle.
“Lord Saunders has been seen on the road. He’ll be here before nightfall. Go and change into your best gown, and braid your hair,” he added with a frown. “You look unkempt, girl. Do not give him a distaste for you. We need this union if we are to hold on to our home.”
“Father, I . . .”
“What is it, girl?” he cut her short. The worry was drawing lines on his face and shadows in his eyes. This land was not his, had never been his. He had taken it by force when Melina was a child, and now he had to make alliances with men like Lord Saunders to hold it. He had to use his own daughter as part of the bargain to hold on to his ill-gotten gains.
“Nothing, father.”
He wasn’t listening anyway.
Melina could have caught his attention; she could have made him listen. What if she told him what Grendell had done in the garden? Instead she fell silent, merely hurrying to do his bidding. She told herself she would just have to make sure she did not get too close to Grendell again, not until she was safely wed to Lord Saunders.
And then a sneaky little thought jumped into her mind:
What if you were marrying Grendell instead? What if it was Grendell who would lie next to you in your marriage bed instead of Lord Saunders?
Of course she dismissed that immediately, relegating it to the depths of her soul, where she kept all the dreams and wishes she’d grown out of once she became a woman. Such things were not possible in the real world and she’d best get used to being bedded by Lord Saunders because that was where her future lay.
***
Melina bathed in the rose petal scented water brought up to her chamber by her servants. The warmth soothed her and once she was wrapped in her robe, she lay down a moment upon her bed.
She didn’t mean to fall asleep, but she’d been up since before dawn seeing to the household preparations for Lord Saunders’ arrival, and the feasting that was to take place that night.
In the warmth of her bed, with her body relaxed, pleasurable dreams began to trickle into her head.