Free For the Highlander's Pleasure by Joanne Rock Page A

understood that some beauty potions were no more than a bit of sheep fat to plump an aging woman’s weathered cheeks. But since the benefits of such a potion were all too real, if not magic, they were valuable nevertheless. Why could she not feel some softening of her heart now?
“By the saints,” she prayed, pressing one more handful of the herbs to her kirtle, just beneath the neckline. “Make me amenable to the man I should wed. Soothe the wildness in my heart that I may bow to his will and my father’s without undue pain. Or distress. Or fury.”
Her prayers turning a bit more vehement than she intended, Violet ground her teeth against the urge to say any more. Instead, she simply leaned forward into the chilly current of the water and opened her tunic to the icy kiss of the fast-flowing stream, allowing the water to wash away the evidence of her small flight of fancy.
* * *
     
By the saints.
Highlander Finn Mac Néill had walked the Scots borders long enough to know the oaths of the Lowlanders. And at a sight like the one before him—a wanton maid enraptured by the flow of water over her bare breasts—he thought the plea appropriate.
Stilling himself utterly so as not to be overheard, he saw no harm in helping himself to a long and uninterrupted view. The ends of the maid’s dark, unbound hair slipped into the current as she leaned forward, clinging in wet pieces to the bountiful expanse of pale, creamy flesh. Her eyes closed as if in a seductive trance. Inky lashes fanned her flushed cheeks while a plump, rosebud mouth pursed in a soft bow of surprise.
For a man who had been roaming the countryside in search of a killer for weeks, nay moons, this picture of delectable sweetness was a momentary pleasure he could never have foreseen.
The dark-haired beauty was garbed, but with the way the water sealed her skirts to her legs, she might as well have been bare. The outline of shapely thighs and womanly hips was all too apparent. Her simple tunic was equally soaked, but she’d lowered the top half so much that Finn could spy the rosy tip of each breast, puckered and pink from the water’s chill. Perfectly shaped for a man’s mouth.
Swallowing hard, he reminded himself that he had no right to indulge in this view. How could he think of his own desires when his brother’s spirit roamed Neamh—heaven for the Gaels—thirsting for a vengeance that only a mortal sword could inflict?
As he saw the maiden straighten from her wanton bath, yanking her gown back into place, Finn made a sound of disgust. He watched as she peered about the clearing with the keen and narrowed gaze of a huntress, studying the trees, her gray eyes stopping when she spotted him.
What did the lass think in that silent moment of watchful regard? Did the nymph see in him a chance to slake her lust? Perhaps she considered the merits of a man’s hands to soothe her fiery flesh instead of the icy stream.
But any thought of being dragged behind the bushes to bed a woodland seductress was dashed when the lady began to scream.
“Stand back, devil’s spawn!” she shrieked, turning to run toward the horse tethered nearby.
Near him.
Her boots kicked up mud as she streaked toward the animal, spattering her soaked skirts even though she clutched them high. Pale fear washed the color from her cheeks, reminding him that he would appear as no friend to a simple maid. Even though he had not led men in battle for months, Finn was garbed in the long cloak of the Highland warlords. He had never bothered adopting the shorter hauberk of the natives, since his size and fierce aspect marked him as a Highlander at first glance.
Now, unwilling for this noisy little maid to set her village in an uproar when Finn had no dark intentions, he vaulted over a fallen log and splashed through a patch of the inlet to reach her.
She was fleet of foot, but her sodden skirts hampered her as she ran. Her hem caught on a branch, holding her fast until he reached her. She yanked at