Free Emerald Embrace by Shannon Drake

followed him out, longing to do real battle, ready to tear into him and his arrogance with a vengeance.
    But he was gone. The great laird of Creeghan had disappeared into the darkness, and she might well have dreamed the entire episode.
    She came back inside, and she closed the balcony doors tightly behind her, bolting them securely. She shivered fiercely and dived back beneath her covers, drawing them to her chin for warmth.
    She had dreamed of him.
    But he had come, too, in truth, to her room. The rich, subtle scent of his cologne lingered upon the air.
    And upon her flesh.
    He was dangerous. So dangerous. But when he touched her, she did not care. She wanted to explore the fever that came to haunt and singe her blood. She wanted to feel his eyes touch her again, just as they had this night.
    She closed her eyes. She could not face another day. Not in this castle. Not with Creeghan.
    Her eyes opened, and she saw that the light of dawn was beginning to filter into the room.
    It was too late. She had already stayed for another day. And now there would be another night.

     

4
     
    M artise did not sleep in the dusky hours of the early morning.
    When Holly mentioned that she had dark shadows beneath her eyes—in a beautiful shade of mauve, mind you, but dark nonetheless—Martise agreed to have a tray of tea and biscuits brought to her room. She was tired, exasperated, and restless, and it seemed like a wonderful time to begin a more thorough search of the room.
    She convinced Holly that she meant to sleep, but when she finished with her tea, she began a probe through Mary’s clothing.
    Touching Mary’s garments was disturbing at first. The soft scent of roses lingered upon them, and guilt weighed down heavily upon her; but in truth, Martise needed the emerald, and Mary would have understood.
    After a while, she had gone through every garment, every skirt and scarf, every fine petticoat, in Mary’s trunks and drawers and armoires. She spent hours running her fingers over every swatch of cloth, thinking that Mary might have sewn the emerald into a hem, but she found nothing.
    By the time the midday meal came round, Martise was forced to admit that the emerald was not among Mary’s things in the room. She had searched the drawers for false bottoms, she had gone through the bedding, she had looked through the drapes and tried to imagine every nook and cranny in the large room.
    She was running out of time. She could refrain from going down to the hall for a meal, but she had to dress for the memorial. After all, the proceedings were being carried out for her benefit.
    She pinned her hair in a secure and staid knot at her nape and dressed in a dark and somber blue, a gown with tiny buttons that crawled nearly up her throat. She had tried not to spend the morning thinking of the master of the castle, but now, aware that she would have to see him sooner or later, the floodgates upon her emotions were slowly cracking open and she realized that she had not really ceased to think of him at all, not even for a moment.
    As she had carefully searched through Mary’s things, she first told herself that she was grateful Mary had kept this large room while the laird maintained his own quarters in a separate tower of the castle. Then she found herself wondering at that arrangement. If Bruce Creeghan had truly loved his lady, why had she been so far from him? Not that it was unusual for a wife to maintain separate quarters, but in such a case …
    Mary had been in love. She could not imagine anyone loving so rugged and vibrant a man as Creeghan and keeping such a distance from him. Stretched out upon her bed, she pondered the problem and realized that it seriously complicated her own. The laird kept a library next to this room, a library that adjoined the room by the balcony. Perhaps they had spent time there together. Perhaps they had supped in intimacy, and the dark, towering laird had carried her across the moonlit balcony and to her