Free The Laird's Forbidden Lady by Ann Lethbridge Page B

floor. He lit the kindling from a candle and nursed the fire to life, gently blowing on the embers until flames flared up and beat back some of the darkness.
    ‘W-w-what is this p-p-place?’ Her voice was an echoing whisper.
    Thank God, she was alert enough to talk. ‘‘Tis an old cave used by fisherman.’ He kept his voice matter of fact. No point in letting her know how much he had feared for her. He strodeto her side. ‘Sit by the fire. There are more blankets. We’ll get you out of these wet clothes.’
    He helped her to her feet. Made to pick her up.
    ‘I can walk,’ she said. She staggered a few steps, but, unable to stand the sight of her weakness, he picked her up and carried her to the warmth of the fire.
    ‘I’m cold too, lass. I’ve no wish to be waiting a week for you to get yourself by the warmth.’
    He put her down on the blankets and handed her another. ‘Put that around you and take off your wet things.’
    He turned his back, more and more aware of the sodden cloth clinging to his legs and dripping onto the floor. He grabbed Beau by the bridle and led him to an iron manger some enterprising ancestor had attached to the rock wall. There were oats and hay in a sack, waiting for just such an occasion as this: a need to hide from the authorities or to save a fisherman caught out in a storm.
    It hadn’t been used for a good long while, as far as he knew, but one of the local fishermen had the job of keeping it stocked in case of a wreck.
    After emptying the hay into the manger, he used the sack to rub the horse down, then went farther up the tunnel on the landward side, to the rain barrel. The water was peaty-tasting, butclean and fresh. He filled a small pan for the horse and a couple of leather flasks.
    Busy work, because all he could think of was her slipping out of her clothes, baring her lush body. He gritted his teeth. He was not the adolescent he’d been that long-ago summer, fancying himself in love with a girl he should have nothing to do with. None the less, the images were certainly warming his blood. And that wasn’t such a bad thing.
    By the time he got back, Lady Selina’s clothes lay near the fire and the blanket was wrapped tightly around her delicious curves. She looked beautiful. Pale, her lips a little blue, strands of damp hair curling around her face, sticking to her skin. A legend come to life.
    He grinned. ‘You look like a selkie.’
    ‘A sea witch? I feel more like a bit of jetsam washed up on the shore.’ The brave smile on her lips as she dragged her fingers through her hair caught at his heart.
    ‘Are you warmer?’ he asked.
    She nodded. ‘What about you? Shouldn’t you …?’ Her words trailed off and she looked away, embarrassed.
    Noble lasses like her didn’t think about men taking their clothes off. Indeed, they probably didn’t think a man had anything beneath his clothes. Clothes made the man, if the strutting peacocks in Edinburgh were to be believed.
    Well, he wasn’t going to stand here and drip to save her sensibilities. ‘Aye. There’s a spare kilt here, but nothing fit for a lady to wear. You’ll have to dry your clothes before we leave.’
    He grabbed the supplies put there for men prevented from landing their fishing boats at the quay during a storm. Or smugglers forced to flee the long arm of the gaugers.
    He moved out of the light of the fire, wrapped a blanket around him and stripped off to his coat and shirt, using another blanket as a towel.
    When he turned back she was eyeing him from beneath lowered lashes. She probably didn’t realise the light from the fire, while distorting her features with flickering shadows, did not hide her expression of interest.
    Heat travelled up his neck to his face.
    Blushing like a lad. Surely not?
    ‘What the hell did you think you were doing, coming down to the beach?’ he said, his voice gruffer than he intended. ‘What you did was brave, but foolhardy.’ There, that was less ungrateful if still