Taken

by Angeline Fortin

  “Why?” Scarlett asked curiously, pushing open the door and inviting him in.

  “No’ only is it a great deal of work for the servants to prepare frequent baths, but some, like my lady mother, believe that bathing in such a manner opens the pores,” Rhys answered as he took a chair near her empty fireplace. “Allowing for evil humours and disease to enter the body.”

  “Evil humours? What disease?”

  “The plague for instance.”

  “What a load of… You don’t actually believe that do you?” Scarlett gaped at Rhys. Dirt was not a protective barrier between a body and the germs. Somehow, she needed to relay that to these people.

  “I dinnae, but some are superstitious.”

  “But that’s not how contagions work.”

  “Are ye so educated that ye ken these things better than the priests?” he asked, slouching back in the seat and propping his feet up on a nearby cushion until Scarlett was treated to a fine view of his muscular legs and a glimpse of his bare butt under the draping of his kilt.

  Scarlett chewed her lip, distracted by the thought of what Laird might or might not be wearing beneath his kilt and that long shirt. “I think I know a bit about it.”

  “Yer educated then? Can ye read, Scarlett?”

  Scarlett shifted her gaze up to his. There was a glimmer of keen interest in his eye and she wondered what he was digging for. “Of course. Can’t you?”

  “I can.” Rhys considered her thoughtfully. “No’ many ladies of my acquaintance are so skilled however. Can ye do sums and such, as well?”

  “If I count on my fingers and toes,” she answered dryly, bringing a smile to Rhys’ lips. “What’s with all the questions, Rhys? You don’t still think I’m a spy, do you?”

  Rhys chuckled, shaking his head. “Nay, but I do wonder if ye might be of the church. Did ye flee the nunnery, Scarlett? Is that how ye came to be at Dunskirk?”

  Laughter bubbled up inside of her and Scarlett wagged a finger at him. “You do ask all the best questions, Rhys.”

  “That is no’ an answer.”

  No, it wasn’t but it was amusing to toy with him when he’d so often done the same with her. “Let me ask you this: why would you think I am?”

  Rhys stroked his chin thoughtfully as he studied her. “I dinnae think it myself, only cast the lure to bait another but I began to think upon it and wondered if it might be true enough. Yer a smart lass. Clever. Educated. Ye hae a way of looking upon a man as if he were somehow inferior to yerself. I once knew a Mother Superior at a convent in Edinburgh who looked at me just so. And too, few women other than those in God’s service shave their heads. Novices do so to humble themselves before taking their vows.”

  “So every smart woman with a pixie cut must be a nun?” Scarlett laughed again. Laird might be able to tie in her knots in moments but his siblings were such good company. Rhys, in particular, should have been renowned for his diverting banter.

  “Ye hae no’ the look of an experienced woman, either, for all yer years and sharp wit,” Rhys said, looking her up and down until Scarlett was plucking at the laced sleeves of her linen dress under his scrutiny. “Ye do seem to hae a bit of the devil gleaming in yer eye but even so there is something virtuous about you.”

  Yes, one that had been a huge part of her Hollywood success story but a nun was the last role she would ever be cast in. “That’s quite poetic, Rhys, but I’m not that innocent.”

  Rhys shrugged as if he didn’t quite believe her.

  “What do you think says experience? The sultry lady of the night look?” Scarlett shot him a practiced smolder through her lashes that had graced more than one magazine cover and Rhys lifted that brow once more. He was impressed but then she had practiced it often enough. A look that said she knew all men wanted her and knew it well. The photographers had loved that naughtiness juxtaposed against her natural wholesome looks. “Experience doesn’t have a look, Rhys. I don’t have to be experienced to look it or act it. People fake it all the time.”

  “Fake it? Bah, I could tell,” he said with confidence.

  “Could you?” Scarlett chuckled in disbelief, shaking her head. “Could you really?”

  “Of course.”

  “Hmm.” Mischief seized her in its wicked grasp. Perhaps it was time to give Rhys a little of his own. Scarlett slouched down in her chair, relaxing against the back. Her knees parted but a tad. Giving him her most seductive look once more, she drew her forefinger slowly across her lower lip and then down her chin and throat. “Mmmm,” she sighed and breathed heavily.

  Rhys’ eyes widened, his mask of deviltry truly slipping for the first time she met him. “What are ye aboot, Scarlett?”

  He seemed almost panicked, gripping the arms of his chair as if he meant to stand but Scarlett wasn’t about to stop. No, she was going to give him her best When Harry met Sally reenactment if only to prove a point and bedevil him just a bit. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back against the chair, shifting restlessly and moaning with increasing volume until she was tossing her head from side to side, clenching her short hair in one fisted hand as she pounded the arm of her chair with the other. “Yes! Oh God! Oh God! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  When Scarlett opened her eyes, Rhys’ eyes were once again dancing with amusement and a newfound appreciation. “So no’ a nun then?”

  Scarlett bit her lip but joined him when he burst out in laughter.

  “Would that be such a horrible thing if I were?”

  “No’ for me. But for some.”

  “My, my. How ambiguous. No, Rhys, I am not a nun. There. Happy?”

  Rhys nodded. “Ye may no’ be a nun but yer a verra fine actor, Scarlett. I might ne’er trust yer words or actions again.”

  “Then mission accomplished.”

  Their laughter mingled again until the door was thrown open, crashing against the stone wall and Laird was there, filling the door. His gaze shot first to the bed before finding them sitting far apart near the fireplace. “What the bluidy hell?”

  “Calm yerself, brother,” Rhys drawled calmly as he levered himself leisurely from his chair and strolled to the door, slapping Laird’s shoulder as he passed. “Scarlett was merely treating me to a demonstration of her fine acting talents. Verra enlightening. My thanks again, my lady.” He gave her a short bow. “And I will be sure to hae Graeme send ye up a bath straight away.”

  “Thank you, Rhys.”

  The door closed behind him leaving Scarlett alone with Laird. Though he hadn’t moved any more than she had, she felt his presence as completely as if he were standing right next to her. The tension. The lingering anger. The charged nerves.

  No, those were hers.

  He unsettled her in every way. She employed more of her acting skills in that moment than she ever had before to radiate a tranquility she didn’t feel. “Don’t you knock?” she asked lightly. “You never know what you might be walking in on. Or were you thinking to watch?”

  Laird made a strangled noise deep in his throat. “What was my brother doing in yer room?” he choked out.

  “Obviously not what you thought we were doing. What are you doing here?”

  “Oddly enough, I came to offer my apologies.”

  Glancing up through her lashes, she met his gaze for the first time. There was none of the anger she expected to see considering the way they had last parted. No, his were blazing with a fire she had never seen in a man’s eyes.

  This was nothing like the soft, simmering desire of the previous night.

  She’d seen lust before. On him, it was unnerving. Even slightly terrifying, yet she felt an answering sizzle spark deep in her belly and her pulse raced in anticipation as he took a step toward her. Involuntarily, she backed away, one pace and then another to match each of his until her back was pressed against the wall.

  “Your apologies?” she said shakily. “I’m the one who should apologize.”

  Would he kiss her again? Scarlett spread her palms over the cool sto
ne. Hoping that a similar chill might seep into her? Looking for an escape?

  “Nay, lass, the fault was mine.”

  She bit her lip as he came, step by step, until the radiant heat of his body caressed her. The veins straining in his neck and forearms thrilled her. Lord, she had been around men who were too pretty for too long. Laird was unbearably rugged, too rough. Too devastating to her senses to bear.

  She didn’t want him so close.

  She wanted him closer still.

  Well, what are you waiting for? The wicked devil that sat on the opposite shoulder to reason goaded with a wicked chuckle. He’s right there. Yours for the taking.

  Another blush crept up her cheeks. No, she couldn’t possibly.

  Why not? The devil teased. He’s the best part of this whole nightmare, He’s a tempting diversion. Can you think of a better way to pass the time?

  No, she couldn’t.

  The admission made her more conservative conscience sigh in disappointment.

  But yearning for Laird flared through every inch of her body, setting her afire. Her heart jittered in her chest like a violent water sprinkler, but the flames would not be doused. Primal lust. Lust like she had never felt before even though he hadn’t laid a finger upon her yet. Lust she felt compelled to act upon, which in itself was surprising.

  “I heard ye from all the way down the hall, lass,” he bit out, looming over her until she was cast in his shadow. “I warned ye aboot him, dinnae I? Do ye ken what I thought?”

  Yes, she knew what he had thought he had heard and what he had assumed she was doing when he barged into her room. Yet he had barged in anyway, angrier than she had seen him thus far. Or jealous?

  Scarlett swallowed back the lump in her throat. Her tongue darted out to moisten her suddenly dry lips. “It was just a joke.”

  “’Twas no’ amusing.”

  His lips slanted over hers with a low groan, forcing her head back and compelling her lips to part. This wasn’t the tender assault he’d employed before. This was an attack on her senses. Her person. His tongue plunged deeply, rasping across hers. Scarlett’s head swam dizzily, blacking out her objections. She stretched against him, her arms winding about his neck of their own accord. Drawing him closer. Urging him on.

  This fire between them was downright irresistible.

  Scarlett tore hers lips away with a gasp. “This is crazy. I don’t even like you.”

  “I dinnae like ye either, lass.”

  Tugging up her skirt, Laird slid his hand between her thighs. Scarlett’s involuntary squeal was muffled against his lips, but instead of withdrawing, she lifted her leg, hooking it around his thigh. Inviting him in. Laird did not hesitate, stroking her wet folds deftly before dipping his fingers into her pulsing heat.

  “I mean, look at us,” she stammered. “I’m me. And you’re so… you.”

  A gasp of rapture robbed her breath and Scarlett threw back her head to find it, but unrelenting, Laird followed, raking his teeth down her neck. “Ye talk too much,” he grumbled.

  Tension spiraled almost immediately deep within her core as his fingers continued to circle her sleek, sensitive nub. His touch was rough, unfettered but at the same time, gentle. Her body rocked against his hand as if of its own will, seeking, searching. Building to a poignant ache that emanated outward, tensing. Waiting.

  He held her there. Hovering between heaven and hell and an agonized moan escaped her between her panting breaths. “Oh, God,” she sobbed, burying her face in his sweaty neck as she clung helplessly to him. Pleading. Then with a cry, Scarlett threw back her head once more as her climax burst brilliantly, painfully. A thousand parts of her body exploded.

  Laird cupped her bottom, lifting her against him as he rocked her against the wall. His hard, throbbing length beneath his kilt slid against her naked heat, the wool chafing her already overly sensitized flesh. “I want to be inside ye, lass.” His brogue was rough, thick. “I want to hear ye scream as ye did before.”

  “Oh, God,” she moaned again, covering her eyes with both hands as she wiped away the tears she didn’t even realize were flowing down her cheeks. She was utterly flabbergasted by what had just happened and he just wanted to hear a repeat of what Scarlett now realized was an utterly incorrect imitation of true rapture? Didn’t he realize she had experienced so much more than that? Inexplicable. Unfathomable.

  Scarlett peeked from beneath her hands and looked at Laird, his features taut with desire that made him even more dazzling.

  Did it matter? Yes, it did.

  A firm knock sounded at her door and he stilled, saving her the need to make a hasty decision.

  The knock sounded again and with a soft oath, he rested his forehead against hers.

  “What is it?” Laird barked before she could answer.

  “A bath for Mistress Thomas.”

  “I might hae to do murder.” His lips pressed a warm kiss to her forehead before he released her. Scarlett nearly melted against the wall but managed to get her feet beneath her though her heart was still beating madly. Her skirts dropped back down of their own accord as he turned toward the door.

  “Laird?”

  He stopped with his hand on the latch and looked back.

  “I guess, as far as apologies go, that wasn’t too bad.”

  Humor lit his eyes; with a wink he was gone as Graeme entered leading a queue of men and buckets into her room.

  18

  Good timing or bad?

  Scarlett couldn’t decide though she’d pondered the question thoroughly over the afternoon and into the next day. Laird’s tantalizing lovemaking played over and over in her mind. Silly girl, she berated herself finally. Whatever she was here for it probably wasn’t so that she might have the liberty to engage in a clandestine affair with a divine, if somewhat ill-tempered, Scotsman.

  Such thoughts weren’t like her at all, however Scarlett couldn’t deny that beyond the seductive freedom of these anonymous days, there was just something about Laird that drew her, enticed her. Lured her to act in a way that she normally wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

  Uninhibited. Spontaneous.

  Breathless.

  But Scarlett wasn’t sure if that was what she wanted. She hadn’t lied. Laird was turning out to be more than she had bargained for and because of that, key to getting home or not, she’d avoided being alone with him since then. Avoided making a choice. Did she want nothing more than a fling with Laird? That was all it could be, of course, a casual affair to wait out her temporary situation.

  Her stomach began to churn at the thought. Surely, this whole kerfuffle was only temporary, right? A moment with the man of every woman’s dreams? Or was it to be a life locked in a nightmare? The two conundrums battled for supremacy at the forefront of her mind.

  Tucking both dilemmas aside, Scarlett instead spent a large portion of her time with Aleizia and Aileen, finishing off The Wizard of Oz and moving on to The Sound of Music. On a lark, she had tried to break down the tale of Joss Whedon’s Firefly but the concept of space travel had been too absurd for them. Surprisingly though, the young women loved chilling tales of the magic and mysticism so Scarlett had begun telling them a convoluted tale about a ring, a Hobbit and an improbable journey with a wizard named Gandalf.

  Aileen especially ate it up and Scarlett was happy to spend time with her. Recognizing almost too easily a young girl starved for attention, affection and friendship. Forced to grow up far too quickly.

  It was a rare opportunity to enjoy herself, as well. No one at Crichton with the exception of Lady Ishbel treated her as a captive, nor did they treat her as a thing, a paycheck. The publicized product she had become back home. She hadn’t had such fun since before The Puppet War began filming.

  She especially enjoyed the time she spent with Rhys. He never expected to be entertained. No, he just liked to talk, or rather, make her talk. Talking about herself had never come easily but Rhys had a real talent for pulling it out of her. Sometimes Scarlett wasn’t su
re he would be satisfied until she had bared her soul completely.

  His questions – he truly did ask all the good ones – became more probing as he pried tirelessly into her life until she’d provided him an odd concoction of fiction, half-truths and fairy tales.

  She was certain he knew that she was holding back but he didn’t seem to care. He seemed to simply enjoy her company as Scarlett did his.

  But this morning, he’d tried to pull perhaps one secret too many. Looking for answers to questions she didn’t want to talk about, things she wouldn’t talk about and things she couldn’t talk about.

  Her life.

  Dunskirk.

  Laird.

  Where she hadn’t yet felt the need to escape Laird or Crichton, it was those questions that finally compelled her to run. At least for a while.

  “What are you still doing here, bastard?”

  Passing beneath an open window of keep as she tried to find her way out of the castle, there was no way Scarlett could miss the disdainful query. She recognized Lady Ishbel’s malevolent tone well enough. Her spiteful epithet could have been directed at only a few people. Sure enough, it was Laird who answered. “I am here at yer bidding, my lady. Did ye no’ summon me to this room?”

  A low feminine hiss followed by, “You know my meaning. I demand you leave Crichton at once. You’re not welcome here.”

  “Upon my father’s invitation, I am,” Laird said flatly. “And I will await him here to address the coming war and the fate of my captive.”

  “Captive? Bah! You bring your harlot into my home under such a ridiculous pretense? Do you think I don’t know everything that occurs in this castle? I won’t have it,” Lady Ishbel spat out so viciously that Scarlett cringed even though she wasn’t in the line of fire. A harlot was she?

  “Ye willnae insult the lass.” Laird’s voice was as ominous as Scarlett had ever heard it. A thrill shot through her as he came to her defense. “She is a lady born, madam.”

  “Bah! My error was in assuming the same. She is no lady,” Lady Ishbel insisted, maliciously. “Do you think the servants would not comment on your presence in her chamber yester morn?”