Free Highland Enchantment (Highland Brides) by Lois Greiman Page B

me."
    She smiled—the pitying expression of the generous noblewoman—she hoped. "Tis so romantic.
    So chivalrous. The poor wandering performer loving a lady from afar." She sighed. Her gut clenched with anger. "When I marry this shall make the perfect ballad. Bards shall—"
    "Marry! Marry! How can you speak of marriage when you..." He motioned wildly toward the ground upon which they had rolled only minutes before. "When you feel for me what you do?"
    She smiled at him with the careful benevolence of an angel. The Lady Saint. Twas a nomenclature that had kept her apart from the general populace for years. "When I feel what I do.
    Twas you who said you loved me, Liam."
    "Any bloody bastard could tell you that. It hardly means you should—"
    "So you admit it, then?"
    "What?"
    "You admit that you said you love me?"
    He tried to form a word. It didn't come. She forced a laugh and hoped it sounded frivolous.
    "You are right, I suppose. I should not succumb to every lad who whispers sweet nothings."
    "Every..."
    "But they always seem so earnest and so besotted."
    "Always?"
    "And I will be wed soon." She shrugged. "Tis my last chance to sample the fare."
    "Sample the fare!" He grabbed her arms, his hands like talons. "Are you saying others have seen you like this? That you have given yourself to—" He sputtered to a halt, breathing hard. "Nay."
    His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. "You are not that sort."
    "Not what sort?" she whispered innocently.
    He stared at her. A tremor passed through him, shaking her with its violence. "Bloody hell, Rachel! Cover yourself," he ordered. But there was nothing to cover herself with. So he whipped the cape from about his own hips and swirled it around her back.
    The frigid wind from the garment caused goose bumps to rise on her arms and her nipples to pucker like budding roses. But she paid them no mind.
    Liam, however, seemed momentarily transfixed, before he plucked the cape together, hiding her nipples and her breasts and Dragonheart all in one fell swoop.
    "What sort of woman am I not?" she asked again. "Like the sort of woman in the village?"
    He remained silent for a moment, watching her face from inches away.
    "That's right," he said. "You're not that sort atall."
    Nay. Not the sort who would truly attract him. Oh, yes, he had lost his head for a moment.
    Maybe it was the horror of being so close to death that had made him think that even she would be preferable to being alone. He had changed his mind quickly enough.
    Twas not so for her. Never had she felt her own needs with such consuming ferocity. Always, in the past, she had worried for the needs of others, her clan, her family, her country. Twas how she was raised to be.
    But there was no one here to judge her actions, to weigh her against her mother's perfection or her cousins' beauty or her father's courage. To judge her as they had judged her from birth. She had only her own life to care for now.
    There was a certain freedom in that. Enough freedom so she could let the cape fall open as she stepped toward the fire. A glimpse of leg showed, and a curve of breast. She reached her hands toward the warmth of the flame.
    "I think it's time you explained why you attacked my guard, Liam."
    He had snatched his tunic from the floor and wrapped it about his bare hips. "I did not attack your guards," he said, and offered no more for a moment.
    "Truly? He certainly looked like Davin to me."
    Liam turned his dark gaze on her and snorted. "And there are those who say you have the gift."
    "I know my guards, Liam. They saw me safely from London, and they saw me safely aboard the ferry."
    "You're thinking with your head, Rachel."
    "Some of us do," she said, skimming her gaze to his nether regions and back.
    He gritted his teeth, "Think with your soul!" he growled. "Did you not feel the evil?"
    Goose bumps again, spreading beneath the cape. But they were not goose bumps from the cold now, but from the emotions his words conjured up. For a