Page 207 of Wicked Highland Heroes

“Because ye are very large—too large to sleep comfortably in my bed.” Her amusement vanished and he was startled when pain flared in her eyes. That emotion, too, disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she said, “Mayhap I should sleep in my own bed.”

Talbot recalled the cradle that had occupied a corner of the room when he’d arrived and remembered thinking the room had seemed oddly unused. Suddenly he understood. The babe had died in this room. In all likelihood, her husband had taken his last breath in that bed. How in God’s name was he to bed a wife in the very room where she had lost husband and son? How did a man bed his wife after his brother had raped her?

“As you wish,” he said. “Sleep in your own bed.”

She crossed to the door connecting to their private solar, then stopped and looked at him.

He nodded in the direction of the door. “Go, Lady. Rest well.”

Her brows drew down in uncertainty.

Talbot met her gaze steadily. “I may be English, but I am no barbarian.”

* * *

Rhoslyn awoke to a tap on her door. She burrowed deeper into the bedding. The door opened and she discerned the light pad of feet on the stone floor, then the carpet. The scrape of metal across stone followed, and she yawned at realizing one of the maids was tending the fire, which meant it was morning. She didn’t want to rise, but cracked open an eye anyway. Today was the hunt, which meant she couldn’t dally in bed. She looked through the open curtain at the foot of the bed, surprised the curtain was open. Hadn’t she pulled it closed last night?

Alana tossed two logs on the embers, then rose and faced the bed. She smiled, her gaze moving to Rhoslyn’s right. Rhoslyn followed her eyes and started at seeing St. Claire beneath the covers, his exposed back to her. For an instant she could only stare at the broad expanse of muscled flesh, beautiful, despite the scars, then Alana giggled and Rhoslyn jerked her gaze onto the girl. She grinned, then scampered from the room. When the door closed, Rhoslyn braced her feet against St. Claire’s back and shoved.

“You will have to push harder than that to shove me out of bed.”

His deep voice, gravelly from sleep, startled her, and she froze, her feet still flat against his back.

“What are ye doing in my bed?” she demanded. “You gave me the scare of my life.”

“A bigger scare than the night I grabbed you from your horse as you fled your convent?”

Ire flared. Rhoslyn shoved at his back with all her might, but it was as if she pushed a stone wall. She grunted with the effort.

“A little lower, Lady Rhoslyn. You were right. This bed is too small. I have a kink here.” He shifted his hips.

Rhoslyn gave a frustrated growl and shoved harder—to no avail—then shoved the curtain aside on her side of the bed and leapt to her feet. “Are ye insane?”

He rolled onto his back and shoved his hands behind his head. Her breath caught at sight of his chest. Feather light hair trailed from his belly button to disappear beneath the blanket at his hips. Even in the shadows of the curtained bed, she could discern the ripple of muscle across his stomach. Alec hadn’t looked like that.

She yanked her gaze onto his face. “I thought ye were going to sleep in your own bed.”

“I did. But early this morning I crawled into bed with you. It will not do for the servants to talk about how we spent our wedding night apart.”

Her mind whirled with the thought of a true wedding night with this man. The long, hard length of him beneath her bottom when he’d held her on his lap at the inn was just a hint of what she could expect. He would be nothing like Alec. Her husband had been kind, gentle, and...and what? Not young, like St. Claire, that much was certain. Guilt and shock dropped in the pit of her stomach like lead.

“Ye didna’ say anything last night about getting into my bed,” she said.

He shrugged and Rhoslyn was torn between wanting to box his ears and wanting to stroke the markings on his arm again. She hadn’t forgotten how the muscled arm felt beneath her fingers. Her gaze shifted of its own volition to his right arm where his sister’s face was visible above the blanket.

Then her mind came to a screeching halt at the realization that his sister’s face reminded her of someone.

They rode out of Castle Glenbarr two hours later, a company of forty-five people and two hounds. A company befitting a king. Twenty of St. Claire’s guardsmen surrounded them. Six spearmen, five archers, one kennel master, her grandfather, eight guests, Andreana, St. Claire, and Rhoslyn. The dogs barked excitedly and the guests called to one another above the tramp of horses’ hooves.

She had never been on so fine a hunt, and wished she wasn’t on one today.

She, St. Claire, and her grandfather led the hunt, along with Lord Kinnon, riding at St. Claire’s right. She cast a furtive glance at St. Claire, who talked in low tones with the earl. He sat straight in the saddle as if born to it, which he probably had been. The chevaler strapped to his side and the bow slung over his back seemed almost a natural part of him. She could easily envision him pulling an arrow from the quiver tied to his saddle and felling a large buck before her grandfather could let fly his own arrow.

Years of training had refined his lean frame into a wall of muscle so that his shoulders looked impossibly broad in his red and gold jerkin. His shirt sleeves couldn’t hide the play of muscle in his arms. Rhoslyn unexpectedly recalled the strength of those arms around her when she rode with him on the way home from Stonehaven. Heat rippled through her at the memory of her bare bottom across his thighs—and his hard length flush against her thigh. He hadn’t acted upon his lust, as too many men would have.

A mental picture of Dayton St. Claire poised over her intruded upon the recollection. Her stomach knotted. Lust hadn’t driven him, at least not lust for her. Greed was what hardened his cock. A wave of revulsion pitched her stomach.

Rhoslyn gazed left, at trees that blanketed the hills ahead. St. Mary’s lay east, beyond the trees. How she longed to return. Frustration surfaced. The herb garden at the convent was Abbess Beatrice’s pride. There, Rhoslyn could find pennyroyal in abundance. Shame caused her to lower her head. God would surely punish her for thinking of using anything at the convent to end her child’s life. And if Abbess Beatrice could read her thoughts...