Page 1 of A Hot Scot for Christmas
Chapter One
December 24, 1753
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except the rain-drenched man on her doorstep…
“I’m in a bit of a bind,” he said, water trickling off his hat.
Sabrina leaned forward, drawn to the timbre of his voice. An alluring sound, his deep Scot’s burr. It was husky and grained from a life lived out of doors, she guessed. Big and raw-boned, he towered over her. By that alone, she knew, he wasn’t simply a Scot, but a Highlander.
For there was a difference.
A tickle in her mid-section warned her—this Highlander was trouble in jackboots, and she would know. Married at eighteen, a widow at twenty-four, she’d earned her stripes with men.
If she wasn’t careful, she’d earn another.
With all four servants abed, caution was best, especially in the borderlands. Fortune hunters could sniff a woman of means from miles away.The cads.But, if the man taking refuge under her portico was of that ilk, he’d disguised himself well in a muddied great coat and a week’s worth of whiskers.
“A night in the barn. That’s all I ask,” he said over the downpour.
One night.What harm could come of that?said no wise woman ever.
She shivered, a little chilled. Her gaze drifted to pitch-black skies at the exact moment lightning struck—a heavenly reminder to stop dithering. An act of charity was in order.
“Yes, of course. Let me get my cloak.” She melted into the shadows in search of it.
The Scot’s voice followed her.
“I’ll be gone by sunrise,” he assured. “The lady of the house will never know I was here.”
“The…lady?” She donned her cloak, perplexed.
Does he think I am the housekeeper?Possibly. She’d answered the door in a serviceable grey gown and an apron smeared with beeswax though the man seeking a night in her barn didn’t seem to mind. He was leaning a casual shoulder on the door frame, filling it from top to bottom.
“I don’t want to cause trouble, lass.”
“Oh, trust me. The lady of the house won’t mind,” she said dryly.
“Glad to hear it.”
There was a touch of the untamed in his half-smile. A drifter, a traveler, a charmer by nature. Laundresses and ladies alike would want to domesticate him. He was canting his head, reading her as keenly as she tried to read him.
“Pretty as you are, I imagine I’m not the first man you’ve stashed in the barn.”
“Stashed—in the barn?”
She almost laughed while simultaneously executing a tight bow under her chin. After a steady diet of plump squires, dandified lords, and one self-important army captain garrisoned in Carlisle, this Scot was a pleasant assault on her senses.
“I must confess that I have never stashed a man in a barn.”
Mischief played at the corners of his mouth. “What? You’ve never stolen a kiss behind a barn?”
“Neither in front nor behind.”
She stroked a wisp of hair off her face, aware of a certain sense of anticipation. Of almost floating toward him. The Highlander’s appeal had a lambent quality. Basking in it was akin to the pleasure of watching warm chocolate melt over a slice of cake.
“Then you prefer the privacy and comfort of an alcove,” he said.
She felt her lips twitch. “Alcoves are hardly comfortable.”
