Midnight Eyes by Brophy, Sarah (well read books .TXT) 📕

this was only an arrangement of necessity. Just because being held in the arms of this man felt right to her, didn’t mean she could expect him to pretend a sentiment he was far from feeling.

“Now you wouldn’t be looking for me by any chance?” spoke a voice suddenly behind them.

Robert turned and narrowed his eyes at the priest, who simply smiled benignly in return.

“Sorry for the delay,” the man said breezily, straightening already neat vestments, “but I was…uh…elsewhere when your messenger arrived.”

He smiled engagingly up at Robert, who struggled to hide his immediate and intense dislike of the slick little man.

His temper wasn’t improved when the man’s eyes fairly glowed as they rested on Imogen. “And might I say that I have rarely seen a bride looking as radiant as our fair Lady Imogen?” He lifted one of her hands and grazed his lips along the knuckles.

Robert struggled not to growl his disapproval. He would have dearly loved to hit the man. Instead he settled for a good, all-purpose glare that had been known to set even hardened veterans to flight. The priest ignored it.

The priest’s lips lingered over her skin for a moment, but Robert’s displeasure must have registered, because he let go of her hand with a sigh. Robert only just stopped himself from grabbing hold of Imogen’s hand and wiping it clean.

“It’s time to get started, I think.” The priest clapped his hands together with some evident relish. “Give me a small head start and I’ll have the crowd worked up to a fever pitch of prewedding ecstasy for you.”

Robert watched as the little man walked confidently into the room, commanding an instant silence. Robert grimaced a little. It seemed that the priest had everyone in the room already in his thrall.

“Idiot,” he growled darkly to no one in particular.

“Always was,” Imogen said with a small smile.

Robert raised a brow. “You know that pompous idiot?”

“I remember him,” she corrected. “Ian was apprenticed to be my father’s squire. He was a real ladies’ man till he, uh, got ‘his calling.’ I didn’t realize he was the priest of this parish, though.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Roger must have had him installed. Those two were always close.”

Robert’s brows lowered in puzzlement. He couldn’t stop himself from asking, “How do you know it’s Ian without…you know…”

“Without being able to see him, you mean?” she asked, and Robert grunted in reply, more than a little embarrassed by his own awkwardness.

“I just can,” she said slowly, for the first time struggling to explain her dark world. “We are more than just our faces and body. A human is made up of so many other little signals that if you wait for them, it’s easy enough to recognize them. I knew Ian so well as a child, I suppose. The sound of his voice, the top of his finger missing on his right hand.” She smiled her first real smile that morning. “The smooth, arrant nonsense that seems to come out of his mouth every time he opens it. It’s all very distinctive.”

Robert couldn’t help but smile, and some of the irritation he had felt at the sight of Imogen’s hands in Ian’s eased a little. “Arrant nonsense or not he’s going to be the one who marries us.”

Marry. The word was like a cold weight in Imogen’s stomach.

She turned and placed her hand high on Robert’s chest for support. “Are you sure you want to do this? I know you’re only doing it to get the land, but there might be some other way, some other arrangement…” She could hear the panic in her own voice but wasn’t entirely sure whether the panic was because he might say yes or because he might say no.

Robert covered her small hand with his own, trying not to be uncomfortably aware of the callouses and brute strength in his own hands compared to the small softness of hers. “Are you trying to say that you don’t want to marry me?” he asked, as if whatever her answer, it would mean nothing to him.

She hesitated for a moment, then shook her head decisively. There would be no escape. If it wasn’t Robert Beaumont, then it would be someone else. Roger would never allow her to escape this game and she must never forget that. Nor should she forget that Robert was first and foremost Roger’s choice.

Instead of being distracted by the muscles on his chest that she could feel beneath his tunic, she should be thinking of tactics, of survival.

Robert allowed himself only a moment of relief before gathering up his thoughts.

“Good!” he said briskly but couldn’t seem to stop himself from dropping a gentle kiss on her forehead, enjoying the feel of her soft skin under his. “Then let’s go get married, Little One.”

The ceremony passed in a blur.

Afterward, Imogen couldn’t seem to recall anything except the moment when Robert’s strong, clear voice pledged himself to her forever. For a moment she had felt a quickening in her soul, a sense of rightness.

At that moment she had to really struggle to remember that her brother had sent this man. Caught up in that struggle, she barely noticed the cheers as Robert bent to kiss her.

He had hesitated above her for a second, bathing her lips in the warmth from his mouth. The tingle of sensation caused her to let out a small gasp of surprise. Robert swooped on the movement, and claimed her parted lips as his own.

Every nerve ending seemed to come alive in the radiance of that kiss. Fire spread through her body, teasing and titillating every part of her.

That kiss was so entirely beyond her realm of experience that her instincts took control. When she felt his tongue trace her lips demandingly, she opened them wider without question. The only voluntary response she seemed to have left was the one that demanded she lean farther into him, opening herself up completely.

His tongue moved questioningly along her teeth in a slow, teasing