Free The Devil Wears Plaid by Teresa Medeiros Page A

everything to fear and everything to lose? “You promised not to hurt me as long as the earl gives you what you want. But what if he refuses?” she asked against her better judgment.
    Jamie’s only answer was a tightening of his rugged jaw and a flash of something in his eyes that might have been regret.
    *   *   *

    B Y THE TIME THEY reached camp, Jamie’s men were just beginning to roll out of their bedrolls and mill about. Some scratched at their bellies or their heads while others stumbled off toward the shelter of the trees to relieve themselves. Emma hung back at the edge of the trees, watching their disheveled and bumbling pantomime with a wide-eyed mixture of amusement and horror. She was torn between giggling and clapping a hand over her eyes. Even at his most dissolute, her papa had always appeared at the breakfast table with nary a hair out of place. His purse might be empty and his eyes bloodshot from the ravages of swilling too much gin the night before but his waistcoat was always pressed and his cravat neatly tied.
    Given the amount of whisky she’d witnessed these men imbibing the previous night, she was amazed that any of them were stirring before noon.
    A gangly lad with an untidy shock of saffron-colored hair paused in mid-yawn to send a curious glance their way. Emma clutched at Jamie’s elbow, seized by a sudden wave of mortification. “What about my reputation? If your men see us returning from the woods together, won’t they imagine the worst?”
    “They might,” Jamie admitted, a thoughtful look dawning in his eyes. “But only if we let them.”
    “I don’t understand. How do we stop them?”
    He shrugged. “What better way to protect your reputation than to give you a chance to defend it?”
    “Against what?”
    “This,” he said, flashing his white teeth in a lazy grin that set her pulse to wildly pounding. Before she could heed its warning, Jamie wrapped one arm around her waist and bent her back over his other arm, his lips laying claim to hers with a lusty hunger that took her breath away.
    Even through her haze of shock and yearning, Emma had to give him credit. It was exactly the sort of kiss a bandit might steal from the lady he had abducted. The sort of kiss a pirate might press upon a damsel’s lips before forcing her to walk his plank. The sort of kiss the Lord of the Underworld might have thrust upon Persephone before carrying her off to his lair to introduce her to darker and even more irresistible delights.
    By the time he allowed her a shuddering breath, she was dangerously near to forgetting all about the presence of his men. As well as her own name.
    “Hit me,” he muttered against her lips.
    “Pardon?” she gasped.
    “Hit me,” he repeated. “And make it convincing.”
    As he leaned away from her, a smug smile curving his lips, Emma wanted nothing more than to seize him by the ears and drag his mouth back down to hers.
    Instead, she drew back her fist and slugged him in the jaw hard enough to make him stagger.
    She half-expected him to break his promise not to harm her by clouting her into insensibility with one of his big fists. But he simply cocked one eyebrow, his expression bemused, and rubbed a hand gingerly over his jaw.
    Emma’s voice rose on a shrill note deliberately calculated to reach every eardrum within hearing. “I don’t know what makes you think I’d want to kiss a beast like you. Why, I’d be willing to wager you Scots treat your sheep with more respect than your women!” Turning slightly so that Jamie’s powerful shoulders would block his men’s view of her face, she smiled sweetly at him and added
sotto voce,
“There… was that convincing enough?”
    The quizzical gleam in his eyes slowly deepened to an admiring one. “A ladylike slap would have been sufficient,” he muttered. He leaned toward her in a menacing fashion and said in a booming voice, “I’ll have you know that our sheep don’t require kisses when we’re