Free The Highlander's Sin by Eliza Knight

didn’t want to answer. Lady Ross had described Heather to him in detail. When he’d sneaked on to the castle grounds to research his entrance and escape routes, he thought he’d spied her. Pretending to be older and crippled with a hood pulled up over most of his face, he’d looked out for her but wasn’t sure if the lass he’d seen was in fact Heather. She’d worn an arisaid tucked up around her middle filled with apples, and several young lads and lassies were plucking the fruit from her makeshift basket.
    She stood up straighter, jutting her chin forward. “How?” This time there was some force behind her question.
    “Ye sass more than a lady should.” He tried to frown.
    “What would ye know of how a lady should act?” Feminine hands planted on her rounded hips.
    “More than ye.”
    That got her goad up. Heather huffed a breath and stormed toward the makeshift bed he’d created for the two of them. She crumpled up her gown in a ball and tossed it down, where it landed in a heap of fabric that resembled nothing of a pillow.
    “Let us be clear on one thing, Duncan. Ye may think ye know me, but in truth ye’ve not a clue. Nobody knows the real me, and I’ll be damned if I let some heathen tell me how I should and should not behave.”
    The woman had the uncanny skill of making his skin bristle with irritation. At the same time he wanted to wrap his arms around her, he also wanted to shake some sense into her. “I thought I made it clear ye were nay to insult me?”
    She frowned, covering the tremble in her lower lip. But he saw it. A lot of bravado she had, and he had to give her credit for that. He liked a woman with a backbone—when he wasn’t abducting her.
    “Will ye make good on the insults? Bend me over your wretched knee and violate me?” Fear showed in her eyes, even if her lips were curled into a sneer.
    Duncan groaned, rolling his eyes. “If ye were nay a lady, I might have suggested joining a traveling play group. Your theatrics are extraordinary.”
    He might have threatened to pummel her arse—and , boy, would he have enjoyed the view—but he would not violate her in such a way, no matter how angry she made him.
    “Go to bed afore I change my mind ,” he growled.
    Without a second passing, Heather leapt b etween the plaids he’d laid out, tucking the blankets beneath her armpits. She crossed her uncovered arms over her middle so that a hand rested on either opposite forearm and closed her eyes. She looked like a corpse lying like that. ’Twas disturbing.
    He frowned at her, willing her to open her eyes, but she didn’t. He caught himself staring at her chest to see if it rose and fell as she breathed. It did. “I need to inspect the grounds. Make sure we are still alone.”
    Heather nodded but still did not open her eyes. Was she purposefully avoiding him?
    “Ye’ve got Blade for protection.”
    She chuckled but did open her eyes and look over at him. “Lot of good a horse will do.”
    “Dinna underestimate him. Blade is well-trained.”
    She giggled some more, staring at him like he’d grown a tail. He frowned, wondering if she’d somehow managed to become foxed on the few droplets of whisky that may have made it into her system. Blade may not have been a guard dog, but his horse would not think twice about lifting onto his hind legs and pummeling an intruder with his front hooves. “I’ll be back.”
    “Wait!” she called out in a high-pitched whisper.
    Duncan turned around with a raised brow. She’d sat up and held out a hand imploringly. “Aye, princess?”
    She rolled her eyes, a sudden change in her alarmed expression. “I do wish ye’d stop calling me that.”
    Ah, at least now he knew how to change her moods. “And I wish ye’d stop acting like one.”
    Heather waved away his insult. “Let us say that your magnificent steed is not able to protect me in the event someone more nefarious than ye should happen upon me. How am I to protect