Page 27 of The Scot Who Loved Me
But touching her was only a memory. A wise man would leave the past where it belonged, yet standing in the White Lamb he was far from wisdom’s gates.
And only Anne had what he wanted.
Watching her, he knew when awareness struck. The hitch of her body, her rum-glistened mouth still until her reckless gaze found his.
Like flint to steel. He burned.
She drank again from her cup, her fearless emerald eyes locked with his in a blatant carnal stare. Sensuality fused to his skin. His joints taut, he pushed past throngs of couples until the last, a young man trying hard with a serving wench.
“Not now, Thomas. I’m working.” The harriedwoman wiped her brow and tucked a rag in her apron pocket.
The poor lass blocked Will, but he’d wait impatiently.
Anne called out a neutral, “I’d given up on you coming.”
“Why wouldn’t I? We arebetrothed,” he said with relish.
His reward was her eyes rounding and one man’s face draining color. Had she forgotten their ruse? Apparently. His chest swelled with satisfaction at reminding her, while pewter clanked and the serving wench between them sped off, mugs in her clutches and an ardent swain in tow.
Finally, Anne. Except...
Anger and lust bolted him. “What the devil...”
She was perched on a barrel, slender legs crossed with skirts foaming around white-stockinged knees. A black silk shoe dangling off her toes, Anne was sin and innocence.
She wasn’t waiting for trouble. She was looking for it.
Chapter Eight
Will’s bone-cleaving stare traveled from one man to the other.
“Leave.”
She was shocked to her toes. At his harsh command and her dancing pulse. At Mr. Gunderson’s hasty exit (no loss there, the man was a trifle dull). At Mr. Harrison briefly sizing up Will before bidding her adieu with a neat bow. She expected more from him. Mr. Harrison had sailed around the world twice and fought pirates, if his tales were true. How could he give up so easily?
It might be the tiny detail of her sudden betrothal, but she couldn’t fully countenance that. A woman at the White Lamb was fair game until she was wedded and bedded, and even that was negotiable to some. Men were wolves on the hunt, seeking where they might scatter their seed.
Or was it the hulking beast who scared them off?
Will.Upon spying her legs, his calm humor coiled to a snarl. His size would daunt the heartiest, and his hair was on the mussed side, the queue loose with hanks of hair framing a handsome, if unfriendly face. Definitely not Hades. That version of him was rough refinement. This man was nostrils flaring, eyes burning, tension on two legs. He prowled. A great grace surrounded him and she fell into the depths of his amber eyes.
The beast she’d unchained from Marshalsea was back. He’d cleared the field, and by the look, he’d walked all the way from Southwark to do it.
New heat washed her limbs, sounding an alarm. No rules, save one, existed in their new arrangement. She was to give him something in return for his service to the league. Beyond that, theirs was an open field, tenuous and unnegotiated.
She needed to... reassemble.
She sipped rum and twirled her foot. “You might as well post a no trespassing sign.”
“Your garter is showing, madame.”
“So is your ill temper.” She couldn’t stop from peering at her knee.
A red silk bow peered back.
“Do you always conduct business with your petticoats at your knees?”
“When I want to, yes.”
