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THIRTY-EIGHT
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Claimed by the Baron THIRTY-NINE
WHAT IS IT now? It was still dark when Adalene was jarred awake by a commotion outside and by Odette clutching at her shoulder, shaking her awake at the same time, trying to see through a slit in the window what was happening outside.Odette’s frightened face turned to her. “Something is very wrong, My Lady. I think there are thieves outside an—”There was a scream that was abruptly cut, and we stared at each other, shocked and scared. That sounded like Olivie. She could now hear the sounds of swords clanging at each other and men shouting and fighting. She thought of Fabian fighting out there and she turned towards the door.“My Lady!”“We’ve got to get out of here, Odette. We have to hide. Thieves know we’re here and if they find us, we don’t even know how to fight!”She opened the door a little and looked out. Men were fighting outside and cursing, shouting. The other carriage was lying on its side with the horses neighing on the ground. Hurt. They’d hurt the horses.Where is
Claimed by the Baron FORTY
THE NEXT DAYS were hard for the battered Adalene. The bruises on her face and the cuts on her chest had to heal, and she had to force herself back from this unexplainable cocoon of numbness that seemed to have overcome her since my harrowing experience in the forest with the thieves.She was going to have scars, but at the end of that week, as she watched Odette in another of her bursts of crying, she realized that it was the hardest of all. If that horse had not reared and bolted and if the other woman had fallen on the ground with her, both of them would have been taken. No one would have pointed to Fabian and his men in which direction the thieves had gone with her, and if the men had not reached them in time… Odette and she would have both been r*ped.And she wasn’t completely r*ped, was she? Fabian and his men had stopped them, killed them all before they could finish what they’d started. They’d had their hands on her, and it would have just been a minute or two before—She moane
Claimed by the Baron FORTY-ONE
“I CAN’T BELIEVE this is happening,” Adalene whispered as she watched the gathering in the gardens from the window of her bed chamber.“What is hard to believe?”She whirled to find the Baron there, dressed in his finery as a groom—her groom. Her eyes warmed at the sight of him. She couldn’t believe he was going to be her husband.From that day they had started making love again, Fabian had earnestly toiled to get the wedding preparations underway. She had also since then found out that after that terrible night Lady Veronique had instigated—again—Lady Madeleine Clemence Gauvreau traveled back to the castle instead to angrily inform the Duke about the latest schemes of his cousin to hurt her nephew’s future wife. Fabian’s great-aunt demanded retribution.Since then, lady Veronique Moranville had been sent to Spain to marry a distant cousin from another family.And this was because Lady Madeleine and the Baron chose her instead to become part of their family.It felt like the world had
Claimed by the Baron FORTY-TWO
ADALENE BELIEVED NOW.But watching the activity below, it was hard to believe she would marry in such grandeur. She never imagined this could happen in her life. Never.Her family was shell-shocked.They had arrived yesterday, the whole lot of them, and they huddled together almost most of the day, watching everything in a frozen state, not sure where they belonged until Odette had them busy with things they could help with.They were relieved to find they could easily converse with other workers in the manor, and that the Baron didn’t care for anything other than they settle in. Her little nieces and nephews were so in awe of the knights that they would either laugh or cry whenever one would actually talk to them, but they seemed to be thawing as the men made an effort to smile, talk and play with them when they could.Her mother had just left with Odette after helping her get ready and was somewhat calmer now. But yesterday, she was appalled to see the fresh scars that peaked from t
Claimed by the Baron FORTY-THREE
ONE YEAR LATER.It was a fine afternoon as Adalene practiced in the shooting range built nearer the manor since she started training. When they started planning on doing the trips Fabian and Duke Philip Lornier privately discussed the first time she accompanied her husband to the Duke’s castle and court, she told her husband she wanted to learn how to shoot arrows and defend herself. As she expected, he thought about it instead of negating as it was unwomanly to do so, and only about if they had what she needed in their weapons room. It took more than a month after the wedding before he started teaching her himself. She could easily move by then as her wounds have completely healed, and he had tasked a favorite bow and arrow craftsman to devise a set for a woman of her build and height. So the first time they went on the trip to Italy to trade in the ports where merchandise arrived from the remnants of the silk road, she already knew how to shoot arrows. News about robbers on the
Claimed by the Baron FORTY-FOUR
As soon as she entered the library and saw the additional books on the new floor-to-ceiling shelves installed yesterday, Adalene gasped in delight.“I got new books!” she exclaimed, to which her tutor reacted with a tsk-tsk. Fabian acquired a tutor to teach her the necessary Italian phrases in the language she needed for our travels. He would have wanted to get her another one for computing but she was already in good relations with his compter who helped her with understanding some accounts in books she found here. Besides, Adalene only needed to learn the numbers needed for accounts concerned with buying stock and inventory. The Baron—her husband’s people were very capable.But, anyway, the new hardbound books Fabian bought for her were the ones she had requested. She wanted a few books written in the Italian language so she could start reading them and understand more the context of what her tutor was teaching her. And for the next three hours, Adalene stayed in the library for her
Claimed by the Baron FORTY-FIVE
“But I have something in mind now, too,” Adalene said.“No… you were busy with your book and I came over to distract you.”“And I am thoroughly distracted now. What are you going to do about it?” she asked in a throaty voice, pouting a little because she knew how that drove him crazy.And it did. The next moment, his mouth was devouring her lips, sucking them in and opening them so his tongue could probe inside and molest her tongue into a fight. And she did fight, tangling with him in tongue and limbs until she was pinned beneath him after he stood up and tumbled her to the couch. She had him inside her in one smooth stroke, stealing a groan out of both of them because of the sheer pleasure of that. And then he was thrusting slow and hard, her hips meeting each one, her skirts and underskirts bunched up her belly and her flushed bosom exposed to his eyes and mouth as he took her deliberately and with burning intensity because he knew this drove her crazy.She closed her eyes. She cou
Claimed by the Baron FORTY-SIX
As preparations continued for the next trip to the port of Rome, Adalene paid more focus on shooting her arrows more accurately and her knife-wielding skills. It did not lessen her efforts when Fabian welcomed the idea of hiring a small group of stragglers who looked like stragglers but had a reputation for being sound companions on the rough road toward Rome. They could go to places the knights couldn’t go to and get information that could help make travel less dangerous. In fact, this made her work harder. She knew she was the reason Fabian worried, but not one of his men who knew him would dare ask him to leave Adalene behind. They also never made her feel like she was an encumbrance and made a way out of their time to check on her progress and spar with her every day. Traders bring female members of the family to fairs and trade ports. The only difference to theirs was their trader was a baron, at the behest of the Duke of Burgundy, but only in whispers.There was one person who d
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