Free Temptation & Twilight by Charlotte Featherstone Page A

arrogance should be his reward for this night’s business. Patch him up, Sutherland.”
    “The ladies will only find the scar more endearing, I’m afraid.”
    “Yes. Peculiar how many ladies find something of merit in Alynwick.”
    “I’m awake and can hear every damn word you’re both saying.”
    “Good,” Sutherland muttered as he tore the blood-soaked shirt from Iain’s chest. “Then you know I’ll make a botch of this shoulder. But you’ll live.”
    “Scotch,” he demanded, before saying, “I don’t give a damn what it looks like, just stop the bleeding.”
    “You won’t be saying that once you have a look at my handiwork, I’ll wager.”
    “For Christ’s sake, Sutherland, I’m not a vain man.” BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012
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    “I wonder if you’d be claiming that if it was your face I was to work on.”
    “Well, then I’d look like the devil on the outside, just as I am on the inside, wouldn’t I?” Sutherland quirked a thick auburn brow. “Yer in one of those moods tonight, I see.”
    “Get on with it, or I’ll drag myself out of this bed and find someone more inclined to work, instead of prat-tling like a maid.”
    The sound of the crystal stopper popping out of the decanter was music to his ears. However, the roar he let out when Black poured a good measure of the liquid gold onto his shoulder was not.
    “Like bloody hellfire,” he gasped between gritted teeth, stiffening under the burning onslaught. “And there’s cheaper stuff to be used for medicinal purposes.
    That’s a twenty-five-year aged single malt, Black, and you’ve pissed it away for no good reason.”
    “I assumed saving your hide from a stinking puru-lence would be reason enough.”
    “The inferior brands can do that as well as any of them.”
    Black merely raised one laconic brow as he peered down at him from the side of the bed. “I’ll leave you to your duties, Sutherland. Nothing more to drink for his lordship, no matter what he says or threatens you with.
    I’m tired of lugging him about tonight. I want him to walk into Sussex House on his own two feet.”
    “Right, my lord.”
    Iain glared at the door as it slammed behind Black, then turned to give his valet a wrathful glare. “Cease coddling the damn wound and sew it shut. Or better yet, heat the poker and singe it closed.” It would match the brand on his chest, the one that had BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012
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    TEMPTATION & TWILIGHT
    been seared upon his flesh when he had been anointed as a Brethren Guardian. Iain had stoically endured the pain, making his father press the glowing brand harder into his skin, trying to break him. But Iain had always been as stubborn as a mule and had refused to do anything but look up into the spiteful eyes of his father and dare him to do his worst. He had suffered silently beneath his initiation. He could withstand the same now.
    “I will not burn you,” Sutherland said with disgust.
    “Barbaric thought. I’ll sew you up good and tight and hope for the best.”
    “Much more expedient with the poker. Use it.” Sutherland ignored him as usual. And unable to provoke a fight to give himself something to fix upon other than the pain, Iain thought of pleasure. His thoughts drifted back to the hours before—at the Sumners’, when he had clutched Elizabeth’s voluptuous curves to his hard body.
    A man could make a meal out of her. He certainly wanted to. An image took hold, and he barely felt the straight needle prick him, diving under skin and tissue, grabbing more flesh before being pulled tight, tugging the ragged edges of his wound together.
    Closing his eyes, he thought of Elizabeth, her long, sable hair unbound, spilling in velvet waves upon a glistening mahogany dining table. Naked, pale, full curves outlined against shining veneer, beneath the delicate glow of a