“Regardless of what you believe, my father is not a bad man, simply a weak one,” Emma said, echoing the refrain she’d heard fall from her mother’s lips a thousand times since she’d been a little girl. “He is not to blame for any of this. It was my indiscretion that destroyed my family’s fortunes and their good name.”
“Indiscretion? Is that what an English lass calls it when a man winks at her from across a crowded ballroom? Or when he dares to touch her gloved hand while helping her into a carriage? Everyone knows Englishmen have lukewarm tea running through their veins, not hot, passionate blood. Why, I’d be willing to wager this silver-tongued young suitor of yours wasn’t even bold enough to lure you into some moonlit garden so he could steal a kiss!” Jamie’s gaze dropped to her lips, lingering there just long enough to make them feel warm and overripe.
“He most certainly did steal a kiss!” Emma informed him, resisting the urge to cool her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Not in the garden but in the alcove of Lady Erickson’s town house. When no one was looking, he pressed his lips against my wrist in a shockingly bold manner.”
“Forever ruining you for any other mon, no doubt,” Jamie retorted, the mocking edge in his voice sharpening his burr.
She stiffened. “I was the one who ruined everything. I was the one who destroyed my family.”
“And now you’ve decided to atone for the sin of refusing to marry a mon you didn’t love by marrying a mon you’ll soon despise. You were naught but a child!” Jamie’s green eyes flashed with fresh anger. “A naïve seventeen-year-old lass who mistook a man’s lust for love and paid a costly price.”
Tamping down her passions as she’d done ever since that day, Emma replied coolly, “It was a mistake I have no intention of ever making again.”
Almost as if she’d issued a challenge, Jamie drew closer to her—dangerously close. Although he loomed over her in the moonlight, the threat didn’t come from his height or his superior strength, but from the taunting tenderness of his caress as he reached to tuck a stray curl behind her ear, allowing the pad of his thumb to linger against the silky skin of her cheek. “Once you marry the earl, you won’t have to worry about it. You’ll have neither love nor lust to trouble you.”
There could be no denying the truth in his words. Once she became the earl’s bride, she would never again feel her heart double its rhythm when a man walked into a room. Never feel a blush heat her cheeks at the mere mention of his name. Never feel a yearning ache deep inside her in anticipation of his touch.
Like the ache she was feeling at that very moment as she gazed up into the smoldering frost of Jamie Sinclair’s eyes.
Before she could heed the warning her heart was thundering in her ears, his mouth was on hers, moving over her lips with beguiling tenderness. He might look and behave like a Scots barbarian but he kissed like a prince. He gently feathered his lips back and forth over hers, knowing precisely how much pressure to apply to coax her lips apart, to entice her to relax her guard and allow his tongue to slip inside of her.
Emma had shuddered to imagine her first real kiss coming from the earl’s dry, cracked lips. But it was a shudder of another kind that danced over her flesh as she allowed this stranger to lick deep into her mouth. She had never even dreamed of allowing Lysander to take such shocking liberties, not even when her every waking thought had been consumed by him and the future she had believed they would share, filled with chaste kisses and long walks through sunny meadows spent discussing the books they both loved.
There was nothing chaste about this kiss. As Jamie’s tongue had its wicked way with her, her hands splayed once more against the muscled planes of his smooth, hard chest, her fingertips tingling as they grazed his pebbled nipples. It seemed she hadn’t run far or fast enough after all. The shadows had finally caught up with her. As their seductive darkness enveloped her, she lost the urge to escape altogether, her body succumbing to a delicious languor that made it impossible to do anything but gently rock in the cradle of this man’s arms.
She felt as if she was right back on that narrow ledge, on the verge of taking a fall that might shatter not only her bones, but her heart.
She might have been able to cling to a ragged shred of her self-respect if Jamie hadn’t been the first to pull away. Or if she hadn’t had to fight the shocking urge to tug him back down for another taste of his delectable mouth.
He gazed down at her, his thick, sable lashes veiling eyes nearly as wary as her own. If he had sought to give her a taste of what she’d be missing if she married the earl, then he had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. And if kissing her was his way of chastising her for her disobedience, then she had underestimated him. He was far more diabolical and dangerous than she had feared.
A ragged sigh shuddered from her lips. She forced herself to hold his gaze, keenly aware that her hands were still lightly poised against his chest. “Was that my punishment for running away?” she whispered.
“No,” he replied, the grim set of his jaw making him look even more ruthless. “That was my punishment for being fool enough to come after you.”
Before she could try to make sense of his words, he seized her by the wrist and began to haul her away from the bluff.
“Did you forget your chains or your rope?” she asked, her bewilderment giving way to anger as she was forced to take two steps for each one of his long, masterful strides. “I’m sure you’ve pilfered your share of livestock in your day. I’m surprised you don’t try to slap the Sinclair brand on me like some heifer or ewe that’s strayed too far from its pasture.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he growled.
“Have you even thought about the anguish you must be causing my family? Why, my mother and my sisters are probably sick with worry! And what about my father? What if this drives him straight back to the bottle?”
“Your devoted family didn’t mind selling you to the earl. I’m sure they won’t mind if I borrow you for a few days.”
Emma could feel her frustration—and her temper—mounting. “If you don’t let me go, I’ll just run again. I’m not going to let some silly Highland feud destroy my family!”
Jamie stopped so abruptly that she nearly crashed into his back. He swung around to face her, his expression fierce. For a breathless moment, she thought he was going to kiss her again, or do something even worse. But he simply leaned down until his nose nearly touched hers. “You know nothing of Highlanders or their feuds, lass. You may consider it your duty to your family to run, but I consider it my duty to my clan to stop you. You might want to think long and hard before you go charging off into the wilderness again.” He raked his gaze down her with a bold familiarity that made her shiver anew. “Because if you do try to run again, I just might decide your virtue is of more value to me than to the earl.”
Still holding her wrist fast, he resumed his unrelenting pace, leaving her with no choice but to stumble along after him or be dragged. He couldn’t have made his intentions any clearer. The battle lines had been drawn. If Emma decided to cross them, she would do so only at her own peril.
JAMIE MARCHED ON, FIGHTING to ignore the prick of his conscience. Emma had left him with little choice but to threaten her with the worst. It was a miracle he’d been able to pluck her off that ledge before it went tumbling into the gorge. If she tried to run again, he might not arrive in time to rescue her from some clumsy tumble down a ravine or hungry mountain cat. It made his blood run cold to imagine the sight that would have awaited him had he arrived at the bluff a few scant minutes later.
He gave her hand an impatient tug. If she didn’t step up her pace, he’d soon be hauling her dead weight up the mountain and all of his hopes for making it back to camp and stealing a few precious hours of sleep before the sun rose would be dashed.
When she stumbled into his back, nearly knocking them both off balance, he swung around, his exasperation on the verge of exploding into anger. “Damnit, woman, if you don’t pick up your—”
<
br /> All it took was one look for Jamie to realize Emma hadn’t deliberately been trying to slow their pace. She was swaying on her feet, her eyes half-closed. Even as Jamie watched, her knees began to buckle.
Cursing his own thick-headedness, he lunged forward, catching her before she could fall. When sweeping her up into his arms like a babe earned him nothing more than a slurred murmur of protest, he knew she was indeed spent and not simply trying to vex him by slowing their progress. Her eyes had drifted shut and her freckles were standing out in stark relief against her pallid cheeks. It was clear she couldn’t continue, either on foot or in his arms. He had no choice but to make camp for the night.
He propped her limp form against a fallen log with painstaking care, then set about collecting enough wood to build a fire. Aside from the dense thickets of aspen and evergreen, there was no shelter on these lower slopes of the mountain, not even an abandoned barn or crofter’s hut. He used the steel tinder he always carried with him to coax a tangle of brush into reluctant flame, then turned to find Emma still huddled there against the log with her eyes closed—plainly too cold, miserable and exhausted to do anything else. Her bonny gown was starting to look like the tatters of a cobweb; the soles of her slippers were worn bare in spots, exposing slender feet that were bloody and bruised.
This was hardly the wedding day—or the wedding night—any woman deserved. The lass had gone utterly still except for the gentle rise and fall of her chest, a fact that troubled Jamie even more than if she had still been shivering uncontrollably. A faint blue tinge shadowed her lips, those same lips that had warmed and flowered beneath his own only a short while ago, inviting him to explore the silken heat of her mouth.
As a surge of treacherous lust shot through his body, Jamie raked a hand through his hair, hating himself for feeling so damnably helpless. He was used to looking after his men, but they were a hardy lot, as rugged as a flock of mountain goats. They didn’t need to be protected or coddled so much as herded.
He had gone charging after her without so much as a coat or cloak. All he had to warm her was the fire and the heat of his own body. But after being foolish enough to steal a taste of her lips, the last thing he wanted—or needed—to do was bed down with the Hepburn’s bride for the night.
Chapter Eight
EMMA DRIFTED OUT OF slumber to find herself enveloped in a delicious cocoon of warmth. She was accustomed to waking up with Ernestine’s cold feet pressed to her calf or Edwina’s pointy little elbow digging into her ribs. This felt more like being bundled up in her favorite quilt next to a cozy fire on a snowy winter day.
If this was a dream, she had no desire to wake. She yawned and wiggled her backside, snuggling even closer to the source of that seductive warmth.
She heard a pained grunt, dangerously close to her ear. Something hard and obstinately unyielding pressed against the softness of her rump, nudging her out of her drowsy stupor.
Her eyes flew open. Her heart stuttered into an uneven rhythm. It wasn’t a pillow shielding her head from the hard ground, but a man’s arm—well muscled and lightly bronzed from the kiss of the sun. Trying not to move or breathe, she slowly shifted her gaze downward. A matching arm was curled possessively around her waist.
As her dream turned into a nightmare, Emma lunged forward and gathered her breath to scream. A hand clamped over her mouth, muffling the sound before it could escape. The arm around her waist cinched tight, forcing her back against her attacker’s unyielding body.
He must have been awake all along, just waiting for this moment.
A helpless shudder raked her as Jamie Sinclair’s husky whisper poured into her ear like a shot of warm whisky. “Hush, lass. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She remained as rigid as a board.
“Or rape you,” he added, his voice deepening to an impossible octave.
Emma squeezed her eyes shut, heat rushing to her cheeks. She’d never heard such a shocking word on any man’s lips. Where she came from, women weren’t raped. They were compromised. Or ruined. Or were foolish enough to allow a gentleman too many liberties, or careless enough to take a wrong turn down a shadowy alley. Whatever grim fate befell them, it was always somehow implied that they’d had a hand in their own destruction.
When she remained frozen in his arms, Jamie must have realized his promise sounded less than credible with his rock-hard arousal still nudging her bottom.
His beleaguered sigh tickled the tiny hairs behind her ear. “I know you don’t know much of men and their ways, but this is a state they often find themselves in when they first awaken. It has naught to do with you.”
Even he didn’t sound completely convinced. Oddly enough, it was the strained note in his voice that gave her the confidence to trust him. As she slowly relaxed into the warm cup of his body, he slid his hand away from her mouth.
He was right. She’d grown up with a mother, three sisters, and a father who had been absent more often than not in the past few years. She knew very little of men and their ways, and what she did know was becoming increasingly perplexing.
After an awkward moment of silence, her curiosity overcame her fear and she whispered, “Is it painful?”
He pondered her question before quietly saying, “At the moment, I believe I’d prefer a pistol ball between the eyes.”
“If you’ll hand me your pistol, that could be arranged.”
She would have almost sworn she heard a rueful chuckle. As she wiggled cautiously around to face him, his hand drifted down from her waist, coming to rest lightly against her hip as if it belonged there. She gazed up at him in the murky half-light of dawn. The beard-shadow on his jaw had darkened during the night, giving him the lean, hard look of a pirate.
He really was an uncommonly beautiful man. For a common ruffian. Before she could stop the wayward turn of her thoughts, she caught herself wondering what it might be like to wake up in the arms of such a man every morning.
And to sleep in his arms every night.
His next words jerked her back to the reality of the cold, damp dawn. “You were half-froze and damn near to falling down from exhaustion last night. I had no choice but to build a fire and make camp for the night.”
“How very considerate of you,” she said stiffly, her tone implying the opposite. “I suppose you had no choice but to cuddle me as well.”
His eyes darkened. “I thought I made it clear last night that you have naught to fear from me on that account as long as you don’t try to run away again.”
If that was true, then why did his touch leave her feeling as if she had everything to fear and everything to lose? “You promised not to hurt me as long as the earl gives you what you want. But what if he refuses?” she asked against her better judgment.
Jamie’s only answer was a tightening of his rugged jaw and a flash of something in his eyes that might have been regret.
* * *
BY THE TIME THEY reached camp, Jamie’s men were just beginning to roll out of their bedrolls and mill about. Some scratched at their bellies or their heads while others stumbled off toward the shelter of the trees to relieve themselves. Emma hung back at the edge of the trees, watching their disheveled and bumbling pantomime with a wide-eyed mixture of amusement and horror. She was torn between giggling and clapping a hand over her eyes. Even at his most dissolute, her papa had always appeared at the breakfast table with nary a hair out of place. His purse might be empty and his eyes bloodshot from the ravages of swilling too much gin the night before but his waistcoat was always pressed and his cravat neatly tied.
Given the amount of whisky she’d witnessed these men imbibing the previous night, she was amazed that any of them were stirring before noon.
A gangly lad with an untidy shock of saffron-colored hair paused in mid-yawn to send a curious glance their way. Emma clutched at Jamie’s elbow, seized by a sudden wave of mortification. “What about my reputation? If your men see us returning from the woods together, won’t they imagine the wors
t?”
“They might,” Jamie admitted, a thoughtful look dawning in his eyes. “But only if we let them.”
“I don’t understand. How do we stop them?”
He shrugged. “What better way to protect your reputation than to give you a chance to defend it?”
“Against what?”
“This,” he said, flashing his white teeth in a lazy grin that set her pulse to wildly pounding. Before she could heed its warning, Jamie wrapped one arm around her waist and bent her back over his other arm, his lips laying claim to hers with a lusty hunger that took her breath away.
Even through her haze of shock and yearning, Emma had to give him credit. It was exactly the sort of kiss a bandit might steal from the lady he had abducted. The sort of kiss a pirate might press upon a damsel’s lips before forcing her to walk his plank. The sort of kiss the Lord of the Underworld might have thrust upon Persephone before carrying her off to his lair to introduce her to darker and even more irresistible delights.
By the time he allowed her a shuddering breath, she was dangerously near to forgetting all about the presence of his men. As well as her own name.
“Hit me,” he muttered against her lips.
“Pardon?” she gasped.
“Hit me,” he repeated. “And make it convincing.”
As he leaned away from her, a smug smile curving his lips, Emma wanted nothing more than to seize him by the ears and drag his mouth back down to hers.
Instead, she drew back her fist and slugged him in the jaw hard enough to make him stagger.
She half-expected him to break his promise not to harm her by clouting her into insensibility with one of his big fists. But he simply cocked one eyebrow, his expression bemused, and rubbed a hand gingerly over his jaw.
Emma’s voice rose on a shrill note deliberately calculated to reach every eardrum within hearing. “I don’t know what makes you think I’d want to kiss a beast like you. Why, I’d be willing to wager you Scots treat your sheep with more respect than your women!” Turning slightly so that Jamie’s powerful shoulders would block his men’s view of her face, she smiled sweetly at him and added sotto voce, “There… was that convincing enough?”
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