Free The Devil Wears Plaid by Teresa Medeiros Page B

courting them. A simple pat on the rump will usually suffice.”
    A choked hoot of laughter went up from one of Jamie’s men. They had dropped all pretense of scratching and pissing and were now standing goggle-eyed and open-mouthed, shamelessly eavesdropping on their exchange.
    Emma rested her hands on her hips, beginning to get into the spirit of the thing. In happier days, she and her sisters had put on pantomimes and amateur theatricals for their parents each year at Christmas. At eleven, she’d made a very convincing Kate in
The Taming of the Shrew
opposite Ernestine’s lisping Petruchio. “Your sheep may find your crude attempts at wooing irresistible, sir, but I’ll thank you to keep your filthy Sinclair paws off me!”
    He leered down at her. “It might surprise you to learn that I don’t usually get any complaints from the ladies about where I put my filthy Sinclair paws.”
    “Ladies?
Ha!
Barmaids and goose girls hardly qualify as ladies, especially not when you have to pay them with stolen coin to procure their good will. A true lady would never welcome the advances of a brutish, bride-snatching barbarian such as yourself!”
    He reached down to smooth a tumbled curl from her cheek, his fingers grazing her skin in a mocking caress. “You can protest all you like, lass, but I was only seeking to give you a taste of what every woman wants—lady or no. Something that withered auld bridegroom of yours will
never
be able to do.”
    Thanks to the kernel of truth in his words, Emma had to struggle to look outraged instead of woebegone as she watched him turn and walk away fromher, his lean hips rolling in a natural swagger. As his men averted their eyes and quickly set themselves to other tasks, she touched her trembling fingertips to her lips, wondering if in defending her reputation, they had put something even more vulnerable at risk.

Chapter Nine

    T O EMMA’S KEEN RELIEF, Jamie allowed the lanky lad with the saffron-colored shock of hair to stand guard while she performed her morning ablutions on the bank of a nearby brook. After finding herself so deeply shaken by what was only intended to be a mock kiss, she doubted she could have found the courage to disrobe if Jamie were anywhere in the vicinity.
    The last of the clouds had scattered during the night, leaving the sky a dazzling shade of azure. Although a chill still hung in the air, glowing shafts of sunlight pierced the boughs of the slender birches growing along the banks of the brook, their warming rays releasing the smell of the quickening earth. Emma could not resist drawing a bracing breath of the crisp air into her lungs. It was almost possible to believe spring might yet come, even to these harsh and wintry climes.
    After taking care of her most pressing need, she knelt beside the brook and splashed handfuls of icy water over her face. Eager to divest herself of the tattered rag that had once been her wedding gown, she climbed to her feet and cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. After depositing a pile of garments on a nearby stump, the boy had retreated to stand at stiff attention at the edge of the pines, his back to her.
    “You’re not going to peek, are you?” she called out to him.
    “Oh, no, m’lady,” he assured her, his nervous swallow audible even over the babbling of the brook. “Jamie said if he caught me peekin’, he’d tan me hide, he would.”
    Emma frowned. “Does your Jamie often threaten to tan your hide?”
    “Not unless I deserve it,” he replied as she awkwardly groped behind her for the endless row of mother-of-pearl buttons securing her bodice. It would have been much more convenient if Jamie had abducted her maid as well.
    After a brief and largely futile struggle, she hooked her fingers between the buttons and yanked. The expensive silk gave way at the seams, sending buttons popping every which way. She felt a treacherous twinge of satisfaction, followed by a sharp pang of guilt. The earl had probably