Teresa Medeiros - [FairyTale 02] by The Bride, the Beast Page B

no great fondness for crossbuns and chocolate.”
    “ ‘She’ has no great fondness for being locked up like an animal in a cage,” Gwendolyn retorted, holding herself rigid in the vain hope that she would forget she was still in his arms.
    His smoky chuckle caressed her nape. “Wouldn’t it be more pleasant to think of yourself as a pampered pet?”
    “Even the most pampered of pets has been known to tear out its master’s throat if ill-treated or too long deprived of attention.”
    “I shall take your warning to heart, although I can assure you that it was never my intent to deprive you of my attentions.” Before Gwendolyn could fully digest that rather alarming statement, he nodded toward his companion. “Shall I make the introductions, Tup, or will you?”
    The man climbed to his feet, brushing crossbun crumbs and splinters of birdcage from his fawn knee breeches before sweeping her a sheepish bow. “Theodore Tuppingham, my lady, at your humble service. But I hope you’ll call me Tupper. All my friends do.” His eyes were the same earnest brown as those of a spaniel her papa used to hunt with when she was a little girl.
    “Gwendolyn Wilder,” she replied stiffly. “And I fear I can hardly consider you a friend,
Mr. Tuppingham,
as long as you and your companion insist upon holding me hostage.”
    “Now that we’ve concluded with the pleasantries…” The Dragon stretched out a hand. “Tupper, your cravat.”
    Tupper gave the ruffled stock draped around his neck a puzzled look. “Is it crooked?”
    The Dragon’s long-suffering sigh stirred Gwendolyn’s hair.
    “Oh!” Tupper exclaimed, whipping off the cravat and laying it across the Dragon’s palm.
    As Gwendolyn realized what he meant to do with it, she began to struggle in earnest. “If you toy with the blindfold,” he murmured, folding the scrap of linen over her eyes, “ I’ll bind your hands. And that might make it a trifle bit more challenging to keep your white-knuckled death grip on that sheet.”
    Gwendolyn had no choice but to surrender to his will. It was mortifying enough that he’d seen her without her clothes; she wasn’t about to let him make sport of her in front of the blushing Mr. Tuppingham.
    It would have been easier to despise him if he’d been rough with her, but he seemed to take exquisite care to make sure the silky strands of her hair didn’t get tangled in the blindfold’s knot. Still, as he caught her arm and steered her toward the bed, his taut grip warned her that his patience was at an end. “Leave us, Tupper. I should like to have a word with Miss Wilder. Alone.”
    “There’s really no need for you to be angry with her, lad,” Tupper said. “If I’d have taken more care—”
    “You wouldn’t have ended up wearing the birdcage for a bonnet. You can stop hovering like a nervous nursemaid, Tupper. I’ve no intention of torturing or ravishing our guest. Yet,” he finished darkly.
    The dreaded click of the panel came too soon.
    “Sit,” the Dragon commanded as the back of Gwendolyn’s knees came up against the bed.
    Gwendolyn sat, her jaw set at a mutinous angle.
    The measured tread of the Dragon’s bootheels told her he had taken to pacing. “Surely you must realize, Miss Wilder, that your untimely arrival at Castle Weyrcraig is as great a misfortune to me as it is to you. If I could let you leave, I would. You’re a distraction I don’t need and can ill afford.”
    “Then why don’t you just send me home? I can assure you that I’m needed there,” she said, hoping it was still true.
    “Because I’m as much a prisoner in this as you are. I refuse to let you destroy everything I’ve labored over for—” he broke off suddenly, purging the passion fromhis voice, “the past few months. You’ll simply have to remain my guest until my business with Ballybliss is finished.”
    “Your ‘guest’?” Gwendolyn echoed with a disbelieving laugh. “Do you always keep your ‘guests’ locked