“Not if you’re to get yourself the sort of bride you’re after,” she replied, apparently not a whit disturbed by his tone. “I can hear them now.” She continued in a slow, haughty drawl, in an amazingly accurate imitation of Lady Joscelind. “And the fellow had the effrontery, theaudacity,the sheerbad taste,to actually talk to that poor Scot and his niece—and be alone with her, too. Really, whatcanhe be thinking, consorting with those outrageous barbarians?”
“My guests are well aware they’re in Scotland when they’re in Dunkeathe,” he retorted.
“They may be able to tolerate staying in your fortress, but they have no respect for the Scots.”
“I have,” he replied, not willing to be lumped in with the other Norman noblemen. “My sister married one.”
“I had heard, my lord, that you didn’t approve of her marriage.”
His jaw clenched before he answered. “In the beginning, I didn’t. But I’ve come to admire and respect my brother-in-law and his people. I’m also grateful to your king, who gave me thisestate. The woman I marry will come to respect the Scots, too,” he finished firmly.
She still seemed unimpressed. “Yet I can’t help noticing, for all this supposed respect you feel for the Scots, that you neither said nor did anything to demonstrate that respect to your Norman guests when my uncle and I were in your hall.”
“Because I saw no need,” Nicholas countered. “You were managing quite well on your own. As for your uncle, I treated him with no disrespect, even when he barged into my solar while I was discussing business with my steward.”
Her gaze faltered at last. “You must forgive my uncle his enthusiasm. He means well and—”
“And I mean what I say,” Nicholas interrupted. “I think the Scots are a fine people—for the most part. I don’t forget that my sister’s own brother-in-law betrayed her and her husband, and that there were many in their clan who sided with the traitor.
“I also don’t forget all the years that I was poor and treated just as you have been, by Normans like my guests. Never think that because I say nothing, I do not see. That because I don’t chastise my guests, I condone what they do.
“But God’s blood, Riona, I’ve served and fought and struggled for too long to give a damn about gossip. If I want to linger in my garden on a moonlit night, I shall.”
He took hold of her shoulders and pulled her close. “If I want to be alone with you and talk to you, I will. And if I want to kiss you…”
He captured her mouth with his. His lips moved over hers with torrid heat as the desire he’d been trying to contain burst free.
For a moment, she was stiff and unyielding.
For a moment, until she began to return his kiss with equal fervor. Her arms went around his waist, pulling him closer, enflaming his passion further.
She was bold in this, too, just as he’d imagined. Daring and more stimulating than any woman he’d ever kissed, her lips and body filled with the same fire as her eyes. He could feel the need coursing through her, as it was through him.
His tongue pressed her lips to open, then smoothly glided inside. Her embrace tightened.
Drunk with desire, aware only of his need to feel her warmth around him, and the throbbing surge of completion, he moved his hand to seek her breast.
The instant he touched her there, she broke the kiss and pushed him away. Her eyes wide with dismay, her lips swollen from their passion, she stared at him as if he were a loathsome thing.
Without a word, not even another condemnation, she shoved her way past him and marched out of the garden.
While Nicholas stood where he was, panting and frustrated. God’s blood, he never should have entered the garden.
Restraint, indeed!
THE FIRST RAYSof the morning sun were lighting Riona’s chamber when she heard a soft tapping at her door.
“Riona, my dear, are you still asleep?” Uncle Fergus called quietly as she shook her head as if to rid it of the remnants of her dreams.
What little sleep she’d had after fleeing the lord of Dunkeathe and his kiss had been restless and disturbed. First, she’d dreamt of a great black crow with beady eyes carrying her off in his clawed foot. Then a sleek black cat had stalked her through the hall and corridors and apartments of Dunkeathe. Then, finally, she’d dreamt of Sir Nicholas himself, tall and dark and inscrutable. He’d swept her up in his arms and carried her to his bed covered in a thick black fur. He’d laid her upon it and then…
“I’m awake,” she said, opening the door to her uncle. She’d been awake and fully dressed since dawn.
He bounded into the room like an eager puppy and seemed to fairly bounce as he went to the window and threw open the wooden shutter to look out into the courtyard below.
“A fine morning, my dear,” he declared, gesturing at the window. “That’s a good sign, eh? Three days without rain, and warm to boot!”
How was she going to tell him that they had to leave? She couldn’t reveal exactly why she wanted to leave so urgently. It was too humiliating. She should have had more restraint, more self-control, more pride.
