AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nothing wrong with the weapon,” he said, “that Spaniard was bristling for a fight.”
“It would not have turned into such an ugly dispute if you hadn’t interfered,” she said snatching the weapon from his hands.
“He was hurling insults at you. I could not simply stand by.”
She whirled around to face him, fortunately with the rapier securely on its rack and no longer in her hands. “You made it worse. I was about to take him to choose his own weapon, but thanks to you he dug his heels in and then stormed out.”
McCrae swept back his hair in a gesture of exasperation. “All I did was try and protect you. He is a most unpleasant and volatile man.”
“When will you get it into your head? I do not need your protection. I have been dealing with angry, sulky, childish, petulant, prideful swordsmen since I was waist high. I was under instructions from your uncle to keep the Spaniards satisfied, no matter what, so I trust you will explain to your uncle what has happened. And do not twist the truth around to make out it was all my fault!”
“How could you think so little of me? I would never do that.” He stepped toward her bringing their heads a few inches apart. With the racks of weapons behind her there was nowhere to step back without risk of, at best, extreme discomfort, at worst, impaling herself on a buckler spike. All she could do was turn her head away which left her neck exposed to the naked heat of his breath.
“That is hardly an apology,” she said.
“I have nothing to apologize for.”
“Then I have nothing further to say to you.”
“I was trying to help you. To save the situation.”
“Yet you succeeded in making the situation worse.” She flicked her head back to face him, bringing them uncomfortably close once again. If she stuck out her tongue, she could lick him. Oh what a thought! She should not think about having her tongue anywhere near Robert McCrae, not her tongue, her hands, her lips, or any part of her body that possessed the power to feel. Raw sensation was a dangerous and powerful force and being mere inches apart was far too close. He dropped his head down a little which put his eyes directly centered on her breasts, causing her chest to heave so much faster than a few moments before. He snapped his head back up. Their eyes caught briefly, tugging at her heart like a hook embedding itself deeply into the soft, greedy mouth of an unsuspecting fish.
“I may have become a little over-heated in my reaction,” he said. “When the Spaniard insulted you, it made me lose my sense of reason. I could not bear to hear him address you with such disrespect. Is that so terribly rash, to defend a woman’s honor? If so, then yes I am guilty as charged.” All the while he talked in his soft lilting voice, he lightly stroked the outside of her hand, tracing a thin line of skin, skin so fraught with sensation it felt as if it would split apart. “Could you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
She leaned her back against the rack of swords, hard steel and rigid edges pressing into the flesh of her rump. She did not need McCrae to defend her from other men. It was McCrae himself who posed the danger. The greatest threat to her safety was that she would lose her head and follow her heart. A heat spread upward from the juncture of her thighs, a slow burning, dangerous and delicious heat. Without the sturdy support of a row of shields and swords, her legs could surely buckle as easily as her self-control.
A look of hunger glinted in his eyes. He leaned in and their lips brushed gently. She should not. But that did not mean she would not. Eagerly she met his need with a deep and hungry kiss, the type of kiss that stops time and turns reason into honey, sweet, spreading, and molten, unable to be confined. If it was not for the sound of approaching feet who knew what might have happened?
She pushed him away and turned to the racks as if in the middle of restoring a rapier to its rightful place. Ferguson’s head of flaming hair appeared at the edge of her vision. He cleared his throat. Courtesy or warning? He may have seen far more than he should.
“I hear there was something of an altercation?” he said.
“I shall leave you gentlemen to discuss the matter.”
As quickly as decorum would allow, she hurtled out of the storage alcove, her heart beating as wildly as if she were fleeing an angry bear. Robert McCrae was almost as dangerous. She must keep him firmly at arm’s length. He was the kind of trouble any sensible woman would avoid. Yet part of her was inevitably pulled toward the direction of danger for the touch of his lips gave her the same thrill as a lethal sword in her hand.
