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When he raised his head frolint in his eyes that he knew the effect he was having on her He knew And he smiled, the satisfied smile of a man who knows he’s a man, and that the woman with him knows it, too It was not the expression Juliana had sworn to herself he would wear
He drew her closer and tucked her hand under his aro, and she reluctantly let him lead her down the stairway and into the Great Hall The only way Juliana could have escaped would have been toto do Not here Not yet If she did that peopleto hide, and her pride wouldn’t let her give rise to gossip Not only that, AndreAnd she was fiercely deter
Laughter and chatter swirled around thelances were cast their way The littered with a thousand points of light, reflecting off the gilded ceiling and walls Andre steered Juliana through the crowd, stopping courteously as people greeted her But he never let go of her aroal—a quiet alcove on the far side of the room, to which he eventually led her
He briefly stopped a passing waiter and took a cha one for hilass and spoke for the first time since he’d met her at the top of the stairs, and his voice was just as she remembered Deep, tender, with that barest hint of an accent to his English “You are ht to be”
She stiffened Was heher? He’d known her when she hadn’t been beautiful When she’d been plain and aard He seehtly “No, Juliana Beauty of face and figure will fade But your eyes, those s into your soul, will always be beautiful to me Forever and a day”
Those last four words stabbed at her heart Once upon a time she’d prayed to hear those words froht he felt the Horribly, heart-wrenchingly wrong She’d paid the price of loving unwisely, while he
Desperate to wound hirievously as he had wounded her with his comment, Juliana drawled cynically, “Ah yes, those ilass to hi toast “To love Immortal love Isn’t that why I’m here?”
Andre’s eyes narrowed dangerously “What do you mean by that?”
“King’s Ransoes,” she said flippantly “A fairy tale As if any man, then or now, ever loved a woh, but couldn’t prevent a tinge of bitterness fro in Couldn’t prevent her own life’s experiences froe would take a woman back who had sha who could easily have the e annulled and have his pick of women Chaste women”
She faltered at the icy expression in his eyes and the danger that radiated from him, so palpable she could feel it She stared up at hi’s Ransom, the story of the founder of the House of Marianescu, the first king of Zakhar Re how she’d believed in the immortal love the story represented—once upon a time
Re, too, how she’d yearned to be a woman like Eleonora, who had inspired that kind of love in her husband, the first Andre Alexei How she’d drea her Andre love her that way My Andre? she told herself with redoubled cynicism He was neverto him other than another conquest
The frightening look in Andre’s eyes faded Then he smiled faintly as he slowly, deliberately looked her over from head to toe, and she kneare she was naked beneath her dress So flickered in his eyes Possessiveness Desire The sleeping wolf awakening at the sight of a helpless fawn “Throughout history aze held hers prisoner “Love is only one of them”
A frisson of fear ran down Juliana’s spine, and in that instant she knew Andre wanted her More than that, he was determined to have her In a different century he would have just taken her—droit de seigneur—whether or not she wanted hied to another man