Free The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell by Paula Quinn Page A

lap.
    “Let me have a look.”
    “Get yer hands off me!” She tried to push him away with her good hand. When he didn’t
     budge, she swung at him, missed, and almost tumbled to the ground.
    Grendel leaped up and snapped at her.
    “What in God’s name is that thing?” she screeched, lifting her face away from the
     beast’s dripping fangs and wedging herself deeper against her captor.
    “A dog. He doesn’t like it when anyone tries to strike me. Now give me yer hand and
     quit being stubborn.”
    “I will not give ye my hand. These two were discussing what needs to be done with
     it and I’ll not let ye touch me.”
    “Amelia.”
    When he spoke her name, she looked up at him and her eyes glistened large and bright
     in the soft luminance of the morning.
    His heart broke a little for her, for what he’d put her through, and for what he was
     about to put her through. He wanted to protect his country. That didn’t make him a
     heartless rogue.
    “Yer fingers need tending. It must be done.”
    She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears threatening to spill out. Silently, she
     held her hand out to him and squeezed her eyes tighter. When he touched her, she startled
     and opened her eyes. “Wait! Make me sleep like ye did before.”
    “I have nothing left. What I had, I stole from one of yer mother’s alchemists.”
    She cast him a sour look, then closed her eyes and readied herself again. He took
     her hand gently and examined it. Two fingers needed readjusting. He knew the pain
     would be intense and he hated having to do it.
    “There’s Cal,” Darach informed them, peering over Edmund’s shoulder. “It appears he
     has someone with him.”
    Amelia opened her eyes to look and Edmund drew her close and popped one finger back
     in place, and then the other. He did it quickly, ignoring her first cry. When she
     buried her face in his chest to muffle another cry, he cupped her head in his hand
     and held her closer, more gently than he thought he could ever touch anyone.
    “There now, lass,” he whispered into her hair. “’Tis all done. Fergive me. Fergive
     me, Amelia.”
    She shook against him, sobbing quietly and soaking his shirt. He turned his mount
     away from Darach’s and Lucan’s watchful eyes…and came face-to-face with Amelia’s handmaiden,
     Sarah.
    “By the saints!” Luke shouted, bringing his horse close to Malcolm’s. “What the hell
     were ye thinking bringing her?”
    Edmund had to agree. “Cal, bring her back,” he warned, while the woman in his lap
     and the one in Cal’s reached for each other and began a high-pitched dialogue Edmund
     did not understand.
    “Nae time. The guards are wakin’. We’ll be discovered.”
    Lucan whirled on Edmund. “This is madness. Fighting fer Scotland is one thing, kidnapping
     lasses and bringing them to Ravenglade is something entirely different. There’s nae
     honor in this.”
    “’Tis too late fer integrity, Luke,” Malcolm told him, his arm looped around Sarah’s
     middle as if he meant to keep her forever. Edmund knew him better than that. “We have
     our kin to think about, brothers and sisters we dinna’ want enslaved by England’s
     laws. We’re doin’ the right thing.”
    “And what does this fair lass have to do with our duty to Scotland or our families?”
     Luke asked him, pointing to Sarah.
    Malcolm smiled and shrugged. “Verra little, I imagine. She’s here to keep me in good
     humor.”
    Edmund glared at him. He loved Malcolm like a brother, but sometimes the frivolous
     Highlander thought entirely with his groin and not with his head. “Malcolm, ye can
     saunter into any village or tavern from here to Perth and have a dozen lasses at yer
     beck and call. Why her?”
    “Och, Amelia, what have they done to ye?” The handmaiden looked up at Edmund and shook
     her head like a disapproving mother. “Ye did not have to kidnap her, ye brute. She
     was pinin’ fer ye all night.”
    “Sarah!”
    Sarah cast her