A Kingdom of Dreams (Westmoreland, #1)

by Judith McNaught

But today, he had made her feel something else: he had made her feel needed and cherished and wanted, and those last three things she’d longed to feel for as long as she could remember.

Finally she managed to tip her head back and look at him. Passion was still smoldering in those smoky gray eyes. Quietly and without emphasis he stated, “I want you.”

Wrapping his arms tightly around her as if he could absorb the pain into himself, he spoke against her lips, his voice hoarse: “Jenny— I’m sorry.” And he drove full-length into her, hearing her gasp of pain as her arms tightened spasmodically.

“Nay. I wanted only to be loved by those whom I love; to be looked upon and not found wanting by those who know me.”

“And so I invented a kingdom of dreams where I could accomplish great and daring deeds to make it happen.”

“ ’Twas not my will to come to your bed,” she answered in a muffled whisper. Dragging her mortified gaze from his smoky gray one, she turned her head away and added, “but once there, ’twas not my

After years of victories on battlefields all over the continent, he had evidently ridden to defeat in his own bed atop a winsome seventeen-year-old with more courage and wit than any ten women he had ever known. Try though he might, he could not make himself send her home.

She had fought him like a tigress, but she surrendered like an angel. She had tried to stab him—but she had kissed his scars; she had slashed his blankets and sewn his shirts closed—but she had kissed him a few minutes ago with a sweet, desperate ardor that had twisted him into knots of desire; she had a smile that lit up the dark recesses of his heart, a laugh so infectious it made him grin. She had honesty, too, and he prized that above all.

She had lain with their enemy and, whether she was already with child or not, she’d spend the rest of her life locked away in some nunnery, building dream kingdoms where she was accepted and loved, kingdoms that would never be.

“Why is it when you yield, I feel like the one who has been conquered?”

As they rode across the drawbridge, he glanced down at her stiff shoulders, belatedly realizing how humiliating the scene in the valley must have been to her. With a twinge of pity and reluctant admiration, he admitted that she was also very young, very frightened, very brave, and extremely compassionate.

She didn’t try to smooth her hair, or straighten her gown, and his heart squeezed with pity because she’d obviously decided it didn’t matter how she looked any more.

“Behold your new mistress, my wife,” he pronounced, “and know that when she bids you, I have bidden you. What service you render her, you are rendering me. What loyalty you give or withhold from her, you give or withhold from me!”

“We haven’t done anything in its usual order, you and I. We consummated the marriage before the betrothal, and I’ve placed your ring on your finger long after we exchanged vows.”

“I do not ask this favor only for myself, little one, but for you as well. Don’t you think, after all the turmoil that has preceded this night—and will probably follow it—that we both deserve one special, unsullied memory of our wedding to keep and hold for ourselves?”

“Why is it,” Royce murmured, gazing into her intoxicating eyes, “that every time you surrender willingly, like this, you make me feel like a king who has conquered. Yet when I conquer you against your will, you make me feel like a defeated beggar?”

“You are beautiful,” he said softly. “Stay still for a moment so they can all look their fill.” “I was given to understand, my lord, that one of your many reasons for objecting to marrying me— even if I were the queen of Scotland—is because I am plain.”

It played like a melody in his heart when her arms went around him and she lifted her hips, willingly molding herself to his engorged manhood; it sang in his veins as she welcomed the first fierce thrust of his body into hers; it rang through every fiber of his being as she matched his fierce, driving thrusts; and it exploded in a crescendo as she cried out, “I love you,” her nails biting into his back, her body racked with wave after wave of ecstacy.

“Jenny, please, please don’t do this! Don’t suffer so. Cry, for God’s sake. Scream at me again, but don’t look at me like a murderer.” And then he knew. He knew exactly why he loved her, and when it had happened: his mind snapped back to the glade, when an angel dressed like a page had looked up at him with shining blue eyes and softly told him, The things they say about you, the things they say you’ve done—they aren’t true. I don’t believe it.

Jenny was crying as she smiled back at them. After all, it’s not every day a woman is given a kingdom of dreams.