Free In the Heart of the Highlander by Maggie Robinson Page A

get me my clothes. What kind of a health spa are you running here, Dr. Bauer? I shall need some prayer and quiet reflection before I go back to my room. Oh, my nerves!” She slammed the door.
    “Are we still on for dinner, Miss Arden?” the doctor asked through the shut door.
    “Yes. No. I cannot think. I am much too overset. Imagine if that dastard Raeburn had found me, naked and alone in this little room. Vulnerable. No way out. I might have been—oh! It’s too ghastly to contemplate.” Mary whacked the table hard and a metal bar dug into Alec’s head. “I am too embarrassed to be seen by anyone. I cannot face you just yet.” Alec heard a bottle smash, and the scent of roses cloaked the room. Damn it, he was going to sneeze—
    “Um. Miss Arden. There is a little door hidden behind the instruments cabinet. It leads to the servants’ ramp. You may leave with utter privacy. I shall communicate with the staff to vacate the area for—shall we say ten minutes after we get your clothing to you? Does that give you enough time to get to your room?”
    Something else hit the wall and rolled by the table. The candle, Alec thought.
    “Oh, you are too kind, Dr. Bauer! I am sorry I am breaking things. My temper, you know. Most of the t-time I am m-meek and m-mild, but when I am cr-crossed, Oliver says I am a regular termagant. Imagine that rotter Raeburn thinking to take advantage of me! If he were here, I might kill him with my bare hands! Choke the life out of him! Watch his black eyes pop right out of his head!”
    Alec shut them, not that he could see anything anyway. He believed her.
    “I shall see that no further harm comes to you, Miss Arden. You may rely upon me.”
    “Thank you, Dr. Bauer. Josef. May I call you Josef? And please fetch my clothing. Just leave them outside the door.”
    “Yes, my dear. Yes to the clothes, yes to the Josef. I trust I may call you Mary.”
    “Of course. I think we shall be great friends, once I calm down.”
    “I have ways to calm you, Mary. Leave it to me. Hedwig! Miss Arden’s clothes, if you please.”
    Mary gave a vicious kick under the table with one of her adorable little feet. The sheet was snatched from the table, and in an instant she was wrapped up again.
    There was a knock at the door. “Your clothes, miss. Do you want me to assist you in the dressing?”
    “No thank you, Hedwig. Just leave them.”
    “Yes, miss. Very good, miss. You watch out for that man, now.”
    “Dr. Bauer?”
    “No, miss. The black-bearded fellow. He is hard to resist.”
    “Oh, I believe I can resist him with no difficulty whatsoever. I loathe beards. Thank you, Hedwig. That will be all.”
    Mary waited a beat, then opened the door, grabbed her clothes, and locked them in again.
    “You were magnificent,” Alec whispered from under the table, somewhat afraid to come out. The room was pitch black, but he was pretty sure Mary Arden was glaring at him.
    “Make yourself useful and do up my laces.”
    Alec was a bit more familiar undoing laces in the dark, but he managed to cinch Mary into her long corset, her stiff back radiating anger. There was a rustle of clothing where he heard mumblings, with perhaps a few curses included. Once her head was free of the fabric, she said, “What the hell were you thinking?”
    Hadn’t he asked himself that very question?
    It seemed he didn’t have to answer it. Her little fist punched his chest with each word. “I cannot believe you would be so brazen to come in here and—fondle me like some lecher. You, Lord Raeburn, are disgusting! Did you think you’d get away with it?”
    Yes. Yes, he had. He’d almost made his escape. His boot heels hit the cabinet as she pounded him backward, and he shoved it out of the way. It was on wheels, and it crashed into the corner. He felt around the wall behind it, and found a door fit for Snow White’s dwarfs. Alec pulled the door open, and a spill of electric light fell into the room.
    “Ladies first.”
    Mary