Scarlett looked down, startled, and dropped her hand as though burned. “Bad habit.”
Katie smirked, gathering her bundle once more. “Aye. A habit with his name on it.”
Scarlett tried not to smile, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her.
Katie turned to go, pausing halfway down the corridor. “He’ll come around, ye ken. Sooner or later.”
Scarlett shook her head. “And if he doesnae?”
Katie winked. “Then I’ll make him a tonic for clarity, strong enough to knock sense into both of ye.”
Scarlett’s laughter followed her down the hall, but when the sound faded, she stood alone again, her fingers unconsciously finding the pendant at her throat.
She whispered to no one, “It’s only a gift.”
But even as she said it, she knew she was lying.
Outside her chamber, the rain whispered against the windows, and the old stones sighed with the night wind. Scarlett lay in bed, eyes heavy, and the faint glow of the hearth painted gold across the quilt. It was a rare kind of peace with no duties, no murmurs from the maids, and no brooding laird pacing through her thoughts.
Finally, a night that belongs to me.
Her limbs were soft with warmth and drowsiness when a faint creak broke the quiet. Her eyes fluttered open. At first, she thought it was only the draft again, the moan of wind through old hinges, but then she saw him.
Robert stood in the doorway, framed by the torchlight from the corridor. His shirt clung faintly to his chest, his boots still damp from patrol.
Scarlett pushed herself upright, gathering the quilt to her chest. “Ye have no right to be here,” she said sharply though her voice trembled. “This night is mine. I didnae request ye.”
Robert said nothing at first. He only closed the door and let the silence stretch between them. When he finally spoke, his tone was roughened by something she couldn’t name.
“Aye, I ken that. But I cannae stay away.”
Her heart gave a traitorous jolt. “Ye cannae?”
He took a slow step forward. “Ye’re driving me mad, Scarlett.
Desirable and insufferable all at once.”
Her breath caught, anger flaring as quick as a spark. “Insufferable?
That’s a fine way to flatter a woman, Me Laird.”
“Flattery’s wasted on ye.” His mouth curved faintly. “Ye’d only mock me for it.”
“I might.” She lifted her chin though her voice came out softer than she intended. “So what is it ye expect of me, barging in at this hour? Gratitude? Amusement? A fight?”
He took another step closer, and her words thinned to air.
“I didnae come to fight.” His gaze fixed on her. “I came because when I try to keep away, I fail.”
Scarlett opened her mouth, but before she could speak, he crossed the room in two strides.
There was no gentle request, no slow lean. His hand snapped up, calloused palm cupping her jaw, fingers tangling in the hair ather nape to tilt her face to his. His mouth crashed down on hers, not a kiss but a claiming.
This was no careful meeting of lips. It was devouring. He tasted of the night’s rain and the sharp, metallic tang of his own frustration. There was nothing polite in it, only a raw, open-mouthed hunger that demanded her surrender. For a single, suspended heartbeat, she stiffened, her mind screaming a protest that was instantly smothered. Thought shattered into sensation.
His other hand, rough and warm, slid from her jaw to her cheek, his thumb a brutal caress along the line of her bone as if memorizing her through force.
His tongue swept into her mouth, a hot, insistent invasion that drew a ragged gasp from her lungs. This wasn’t a man asking, it was a man taking, and the terrifying truth coiling low in her belly was that she was more than ready to be taken.
