A Kingdom of Dreams (Westmoreland, #1)

by Judith McNaught

The demonic specter that towered before her nearly made her scream with terror: He was huge. Enormous. His hair was black and his black cloak was billowing out behind him, blowing eerily in the wind as if it had a life of its own. Firelight danced across his swarthy, hawklike features, casting shadows that made him look positively satanic; it blazed in his strange eyes, heating them until they glowed like molten silver coals in his bearded haggard face.

“How could anyone possibly call you a beauty?” he said with deliberate, insulting sarcasm. “The jewel of Scotland?”

And in that unlikely moment, as she held his dagger poised high, ready to strike, Royce Westmoreland thought she was the most magnificent creature he’d ever beheld; a wild, beautiful, enraged angel of retribution, her chest rising and falling with fury as she courageously confronted an enemy who towered over her.

“Some women need no jewels to make them sparkle. You are one of them.”

the wise abbess must have meant her “effect” would make them behave like hateful, tender, rude, unpredictable madmen—all in the space of one hour.

his engorged manhood.

And despite all her fear and guilt for what she felt, all she wanted at that moment was for him to call her “Jenny” again in that same rough, tender tone. Or to say, in any tone, “I love you.”

“It wasn’t a real kingdom with land and castles; it was a kingdom of dreams—a place where things would be just the way I wanted them to be.”

In the space of the few moments allotted to him by perverse fate and an unpredictable king, Royce rapidly considered all the myriad reasons he would be insane to wed Jennifer Merrick, and the several compelling reasons why he was going to do it.

“You are mad!” she snapped, her chest heaving. “And you are a devil!” “And you, my dear,” Royce imperturbably replied, “are a bitch.” With that, he turned to the horrified friar and unhesitatingly announced, “The lady and I wish to be wed.”

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

his engorged manhood;

Royce drew a long, painful breath. “Would it help if I said I love you?”

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