Spellbound by Jaimey Grant

kind of lover he was. Would he be tender and
sweet or a little rough and wild? The desire to find out was great
within her and she wondered how long it would be before she simply
lost control and asked him to show her.
    Damn. Would she never
learn?
    And to make matters worse,
the duke’s brother, Lord Greyden, was there to make life difficult
for her.
    As if conjured, Lord
Greyden appeared from the back of the manor and approached. Raven
groaned inwardly and pasted a welcoming smile on her
face.

    He wasn’t sure what made
him look out the window, but he did. And he stopped breathing. His
blood ran cold through his veins. His hands trembled and he had to
swallow around a large lump in his throat. The feeling of helpless
panic didn’t ease until he saw his brother walking out to meet
Raven by the lake.
    Tristan drew in a shaky
breath and slowly let it out. He forced his mind away from the
panic, away from the fear. With a shake of his head, he managed to
firmly place the haunting images in the back of his mind. He fisted
his hands tightly and slowly released his grip, relaxing them as
much as possible.
    Then he looked away.
Perhaps he would have been better able to fight the panic had he
simply looked away in the first place. It had been nearly
impossible, however, to tear his eyes away from the beautiful woman
standing on the edge of the frozen water. The thought of her
stepping out on the ice was enough to make him scream. The
possibility of her falling through the ice was uppermost in his
thoughts.
    He dared to look again and
was relieved to see Grey leading her firmly away from the water’s
edge. His relief turned swiftly to annoyance then anger as he saw
Grey take Raven’s arm in a steely grip. She visibly pulled away
only to stop when he bent closer and whispered in her ear. If the
sudden pallor of her skin was anything to go by, Tristan would say
she’d just been threatened. And by a member of his own
household!
    Slamming a fist onto the
desk, Tristan stood and strode from the room.

    “What you ask simply isn’t
possible,” Raven insisted, pulling again at Lord Greyden’s solid
grip. “Let go.”
    Grey gave her a little
shake. “All I want is a little of what my brother’s getting, my
dear. What is so difficult about that?” he purred.
    Raven forced her body to
relax, smiling sweetly. “Oh, is that all? Why didn’t you say so in
the first place?”
    Grey eyed her suspiciously.
“So you will come to my room tonight?”
    “Whyever would I do that?”
Raven asked, feigning incomprehension.
    Grey’s confusion was
apparent in the way he blinked twice at her before forming a
careful reply. He opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of
it and snapped his jaw shut. “Excuse me?” he finally
ventured.
    Raven nearly laughed.
Instead, she pasted an innocent expression on her face and
explained. “You said you expected to receive the same thing from me
as your brother. I agreed. After all,” she shrugged, “it really is
not all that difficult to speak with a gentlemen.”
    “You cannot be serious,”
sputtered Grey after a moment of stunned silence. “You don’t really
expect me to believe you haven’t been warming my brother’s bed?
That he keeps his mistress under grandmama’s nose merely for her
conversational abilities?”
    “She is not my mistress,
Grey.”
    Both turned in surprise at
the softly uttered words. Raven smiled politely, masking her
unease. Grey glanced from one to the other in patent
disbelief.
    “You bring an actress here
and expect me to believe she’s just a friend?” he
sneered.
    Tristan turned pale green
eyes on his younger sibling. “I really don’t care what you believe,
Grey. Just remember who is duke and who is not. I will do what I
damn well please in my own home. And whether or not my guest is
indeed an actress need not concern you.”
    Greyden just stared at them
for long tense moment before finally turning on his heel and moving
furiously back to the