Page 46 of A Hot Scot for Christmas
Beyond the shed, terse footfalls echoed in the night. She listened, head cocked, until a door banged shut.
Finally. She was alone with the former enforcer of Clan MacDonald of Clanranald.
Steel infused her spine. She’d need it to face the man whose stare burned holes in her back. Foggy wisps curled through the doorway, the damp chill welcome. It’d keep her alert. Her purpose was clear: his freedom, her proposition, and a promising future for the people who depended on her. Well-laid plans, all of them, yet they wavered like a stack of children’s blocks about to fall when she swung around and faced the smirking highlander.
“Go’ any more weapons I should know about?” he asked.
“Only the knife.”
The weapon was snug against her skin, security in an insecure world. The blade left an awful slash for those who didn’t understand the word no. Tonight she needed the former enforcer to say yes, a Herculean task since she would do the asking.
“You’ve gone to an awful lo’ of trouble to see me, lass. Why no’ come closer?” Head lolling on the wall, he hitched up a knee, and shorn wool separated over a swath of hairy thigh.
A spark burst inside her. The boor wanted to scare her off.
“That’s rude, Will MacDonald. Even for you.”
Mischief played on his face. “Have we met?”
She squeezed the key, its metal teeth biting through her glove.
“Yes. A long time ago.”
He shrugged and stared at the wall, indifferent to her presence. The younger, hot-blooded highlander she once knew was gone; the older one who took his place was rougher and dangerous with his careless air.
An unpredictable man. A challenge, to be sure.
She gathered her skirts and crouched boldly between his legs. Will grunted. He searched her hood, shock warring with irritation across handsome features. A wealth of unbound gilded gold hair draped giant shoulders. With the key in hand, she brushed back those gnarled locks, admiring his breastbone’s dip in the middle of a meaty chest.
“My name is Mrs.Neville.”
Stern eyes slanted when she toyed with a strip of his shirt. He resented the intrusion, but his body didn’t. Brown nipples tightened. Skin pebbled in waves of uninvited pleasure. Grit covered Will, adding to what made him attractive, the gruff man unafraid of getting dirty and twice as nice when he cleaned up.
“Beg pardon, lass, but our meetin’ must no’ have been a memorable night.” He rattled the chains, his smile none too friendly. “As you can see, I’m in no position to make this one any good.”
Will’s voice was pure Western Isles, full of softened vowels and hints of Gaelic behind every relaxed turn of a phrase. He could recite a tax roll, and a woman would count herself content, listening to his whisky-smooth brogue.
“Aren’t you the brazen one.”
His scrutiny swept each stitch and fold of her cloak. “Forgive my bad manners. A mon gets few social calls in the shed.”
She dropped the cloth strip. “Have you had female visitors? In here?”
“You’re the only one.”
His chin tilted, cocky as the first day she’d laid eyes on him eight years past in Edinburgh. A strapping young man of twenty then, Will had stood on her father’s doorstep, took one look at her sooty apron and the rag fisted on her hip, and he’d flirted outrageously, mistaking her for a charwoman. She’d let him carry on until he announced he was Anne Fletcher’s protector for the journey to Skye—to meet her betrothed, Angus MacDonald.
A forbidden spark had been lit, and damn her eyes, it burned hotly still.
The years had been kind to Will, having chiseled away youthful arrogance to reveal solid male. Yet something was amiss. Chained to the wall, he wore assurance with a touch of... madness. Up close, his eyes gleamed in the same manner as the lost souls hauled off to St.Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics. Nor did he question a woman purchasing his freedom at midnight.
“Gossips say you’ve never lacked the companionship of women.”
A half-crazed smile split his face. “Rumors, lass. Just rumors.”
“I heard you were a busy man, protecting London’s wealthy widows.”
Really, there was only one. The Countess of Denton. She fought the vile taste that woman’s name left in her mouth.
