The Devil Wears Plaid (12 page)

Against her will, her wayward imagination conjured up an image of him sinking into the water as naked as on the day he was born, reaching to tug her into his arms with a wicked come-hither smile, his well-muscled body as wet and sleek as a seal’s. A heat of another kind swept over her, tightening the rosy peaks of her breasts and making the fire in her belly snake lower until it settled into a dull ache between her thighs.

She sat straight up in the tub, her eyes flying open. Despite the brisk air caressing her cheeks, she suddenly felt feverish and cross. She pressed the back of her hand to her brow. Perhaps the exposure to the elements had been too much for her. Perhaps she was taking a fatal ague. She’d spent countless hours
mooning over Lysander in the privacy of her bath—the only place she could escape her sisters’ inquisitive eyes—but she’d never before been troubled by such disturbing visions. Even in her boldest fancies, Lysander had been garbed in the full regalia of a gentleman, his fashionable Hessians perfectly polished, his cravat flawlessly knotted. She’d never dared to imagine him doing anything more audacious than stealing an innocent kiss from her puckered lips.

She frowned. Now that she thought about it, she could hardly recall his face. Features that had once been incredibly dear to her eyes were nothing more than a vague blur. His curling hair no longer gleamed like gold in her memory, but seemed as pale and lifeless as corn husks. His perfectly modulated voice with its precise diction and crisp consonants sounded as tepid as a day-old cup of tea. There had been no hint of smoke in that voice, no echo of simmering passion to make a woman dream about more than just kisses when she was alone in her bath.

As that unsettling fever swept through her once again, Emma quickly clambered out of the tub, toweling herself dry with the rough linen. She was already dreading the prospect of trying to wriggle her way back into her clammy garments when she spotted the nightdress hanging on a nearby peg.

She drew the crisp, freshly laundered folds over her head. A stray gust of wind struck the window
beneath the dormer, sending it banging open. Cold air flooded the room, pebbling Emma’s damp skin with gooseflesh.

She rushed over to close the window but her fingers froze on the latch when she spotted the two figures locked in a torrid embrace at the edge of the slope below.

T
HE SNOW SEEMED TO
cast a supernatural glow over the stony terrain behind the cottage, making it that much easier to spot Jamie in the arms of another woman.

The sight made Emma feel strangely hot, then cold—as if the icy flakes were no longer swirling outside the window but inside her heart.

As she watched, longing to avert her eyes but unable to look away, Brigid twined her arms even more tightly around Jamie’s neck and tipped her head back to laugh up at him, her teeth a flash of white against her swarthy skin. Emma couldn’t hear what the woman was saying, but when her hand glided downward and disappeared between the two of them, Jamie threw back his head and gritted his teeth, his expression only too easy to interpret.

It was the expression of a man in the throes of some sort of terrible, yet exquisite, pain. A man willing
to do whatever it took to turn that pain into pleasure.

Pressing her advantage, Brigid nuzzled his throat and rubbed her breasts against the broad chest where Emma had so recently rested her head. Then Brigid’s head fell back in wordless invitation, baring the graceful line of her throat. Emma squinted through the falling snow, almost willing to swear she saw Jamie hesitate. But it must have been nothing more than a trick of the spinning flakes and the ghostly light because the next thing she knew Jamie had wrapped his powerful arms around the woman and was devouring her lush mouth with a hunger that refused to be denied.

Resisting the urge to slam it with enough force to shatter the glass, Emma gently eased the window shut without a sound.

B
RIGID MOANED AGAINST JAMIE’S
lips, her voice deepening to a throaty purr, “Oh, Jamie…”

Jamie’s eyes flew open. Even with Brigid’s voluptuous curves in his arms, it was Emma’s voice he heard sighing his name, Emma’s eyes he saw shining up at him, Emma’s lips he felt moving beneath his—parted and wet and hungry for his kiss. And for all the pleasures she would never know at the earl’s hands.

Closing his hands around Brigid’s upper arms, he set her gently—but firmly—away from him. “You’d best get back to the kitchen before your mistress finds you gone. It’s been a very long journey and I’m wearier than I realized.”

Brigid rested her hands on her hips, her eyes slowly narrowing. “Not too weary to cart that scrawny bag ‘o bones up the stairs. Since the rain didn’t do the job, I was rather hopin’ ye were goin’ to finish drownin’ her in the tub.”

If Brigid in the throes of lust was an impressive sight, Brigid in the throes of jealousy was even more magnificent. Jamie half-expected the buxom, raven-haired beauty to start hissing and spitting at him like some furious cat.

“Why don’t you let me walk you back to the cottage?” he offered, hoping to distract her from clawing his eyes out.

“Don’t trouble yerself overmuch on my behalf, sir,” she snarled with mock sweetness. “I’m sure Angus or Malcolm won’t be too weary to warm a bonny lass on such a cold night.” She gave her curls a defiant toss. “Or Angus
and
Malcolm.”

Eyeing the saucy twitch of her rump as she whirled around and went storming off toward the stables, Jamie shook his head and muttered, “God help the lads.”

Unfortunately, he might be in even greater need of
the Almighty’s assistance. His brief encounter with Brigid had only succeeded in rendering him more
eager
than ever, sharpening the dull ache in his groin to an incessant throb that was as painful as it was impossible to ignore.

Still shaking his head, he started back toward the cottage, already cursing himself for being a bluidy fool.

W
HEN JAMIE’S KNOCK FAILED
to garner an answer, he gingerly pushed open the door of the bathing chamber to find Emma sitting in the ladder-backed chair, her hands folded primly in her lap.

Muira’s billowing nightdress enveloped her slender curves. Her freckled face was still pink from the bath. A halo of damp ginger curls framed her face.

“Well,
that
certainly didn’t take very long,” she said, shooting him a vaguely contemptuous glance from beneath her lashes.

Studying the sulky bow of her mouth, Jamie frowned. When he’d left her, she’d appeared to be on the verge of throwing her arms around his neck and smothering his face with grateful kisses. Now she looked more inclined to hold his head under the cooling water in the tub until the bubbles stopped rising.

It seemed to be his night for infuriating women. At least he knew what he’d done to send Brigid
stomping off in such a snit. Emma’s sudden bout of ill temper was a complete mystery to him.

“I was hoping to leave you enough time to finish your bath,” he said cautiously.

“How very generous of you to consider my needs before your own,” she replied with a scornful sniff. “From what I understand, most men are only concerned with satisfying themselves. By any means necessary… especially the most convenient”—her delicate upper lip curled in a disdainful sneer—“or the most common.”

Almost as if responding to her mood, the wind whining around the eaves surged to a howl. The window in the corner rattled in warning, then flew open with a bang, sending a dervish of icy wind and snow whirling through the room.

Jamie strode over to secure it, but paused with his hand on the faulty latch when his gaze fell on the stretch of ground below. The thin blanket of snow reflected every available scrap of light, including the gentle glow of the lamplight streaming through the kitchen windows, making the night seem as bright as dawn.

He glanced over his shoulder at Emma. She was still staring straight ahead, her delicate jaw squared. Her shoulders were rigid, her spine so stiff it wasn’t even touching the back of the chair. A knowing smile began to steal over his face.

He eased the window shut, then sauntered back into her line of view, hiding his budding grin behind an exaggerated yawn. “I’m so spent I can barely keep my eyes open. I wager I’ll sleep like a babe tonight.”

“I dare say you will.” She slanted him a look that made him glad he’d left his pistol belowstairs in his pack. “Sudden and violent exertion frequently has that effect.”

He extended his arms in a mighty stretch, deliberately giving her a languid look from beneath his shuttered lids. “I don’t think I can remember the last time I felt so turribly… drained.”

The temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees, prompting him to steal a glance at the window to make sure the latch had not failed again.

“I’m surprised you still have the strength to speak. Much less stand.”

As if in total agreement with her, he leaned against the tub, bracing his weight on its edge, and heaved a lusty sigh of contentment. “Aye, my legs are as weak as a newborn lamb’s. I’d like nothing more than to just collapse.”

“Well, by all means, don’t let me stop you!” Springing to her feet, Emma gave his chest a surprisingly hearty shove, sending him teetering backward into the tub. He landed with an impressive splash, the water closing over his head.

When he surfaced, still sputtering with surprise,
Emma was stalking toward the door as if she had every intention of marching all the way back down the mountain in her nightdress and bare feet.

Jamie struggled to his feet, his garments plastered to his body, and tossed his dripping hair out of his eyes. “And just where do you think you’re going, lass?”

“To sleep with the hound on the hearth rug. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding someone to share
your
bedroll. My companion will probably have better manners than yours, though. And fewer fleas.”

Bracing one hand on its edge, Jamie vaulted out of the tub and caught up with her in two long strides. Without slowing his pace, he swept her into his arms and tossed her belly-down over his sodden shoulder.

“Put me down this instant, you overgrown oaf!” she snapped, beating on his back with her small fists. “I’m tired of being hauled all over this godforsaken country like a sack of potatoes!”

Ignoring the furious scissoring of her feet, he carried her out the door, his water-logged boots squelching with each step. “I really wish I could be there when the earl discovers he’s wed a wee wildcat instead of some mewling English kitten. In case no one has ever told you, lass, you’re quite fetching when you’re jealous.”

She sucked in a scandalized gasp. “Jealous! Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I be jealous just because
I saw you pawing some slattern in the kitchen yard? Why, I’m not the least bit jealous! I’m relieved! Now that you have your very own trollop to satisfy your baser needs, you can stop finding ridiculous excuses to kiss me and put your hands all over me. And you can stop looking at me in that intolerably impertinent manner!”

Jamie addressed the shapely rump draped over his shoulder. “And just what manner would that be?”

“As if I were a fresh strawberries and cream trifle and you’d had nothing but bread and water for all your miserable life.”

Jamie stopped in his tracks, his stillness so complete Emma stopped kicking and pounding and simply hung limp over his shoulder like a side of mutton.

When he started forward again, his strides were even more determined. Muira’s maidservant Gilda had just emerged from a chamber at the end of the corridor, her stout arms piled high with rumpled linens. As Jamie came barreling toward her, she let out a startled shriek and plastered herself to the wall.

Both of her chins quivering, she jerked her head toward the door. “The mistress had me lay a fire on the hearth. She says the puir wee lass can have her bed fer the night.”

“Tell your mistress the puir wee lass and I are much obliged,” Jamie replied, striding right past her
and using his heel to kick the door shut in her astonished face.

He marched over to the bed and tossed Emma none too gently on her back in the middle of the heather-stuffed mattress. The dampness from his shirt had transferred itself to her nightdress, rendering the linen translucent. The fabric clung to the soft globes of her breasts, outlining the tantalizing thrust of her pert nipples with a diligence that made him want to lower his head and taste them with the tip of his tongue.

She blinked up at him like an upended turtle as he prowled over her on hands and knees until they were nose to nose, their lips only a breath away from meeting. “I can assure you, lass, that Brigid was more than willing to satisfy my ‘baser needs.’ But I didn’t take her up on her offer. If I had, I’d be down there right now doing all the things to her that I so desperately want to do to you.”

J
AMIE’S SMOKY GROWL MADE
Emma shiver deep inside, in some dark secret place no man had ever touched.

She struggled to catch her breath, imprisoned by the seductive softness of the mattress beneath her and the muscular heat of the man above her.

He wanted her. Now that she’d driven him into confessing it, there was nowhere for either of them to hide from the truth. Not behind fruitless denials and petty bickering. Not behind his contempt for the earl and her loyalty to him. And certainly not within the cozy confines of Muira’s bed.

Sharing the cold, hard ground with Jamie Sinclair was one thing. Sharing a bed with him was another matter entirely. With his weight poised so precariously above her, it was only too easy to understand just how seven strapping sons could have been sired in that bed, or how a man and a woman might best
spend the bitterly cold Highland nights when the hours between sunset and dawn seemed as dark and endless as the winter.

Emma licked lips that had gone suddenly dry. “You’re dripping on me.”

Jamie waited until another drop of bath water splashed like a tear against her cheek, then leaned back on his heels. With his knees still straddling her hips, he peeled his soaked shirt off over his head and tossed it aside, revealing an alarming expanse of bare skin. The sculpted muscles of his chest glowed like bronze satin in the firelight. He used both hands to slick his wet hair back from his face. His unshaven jawline only served to emphasize the striking symmetry of his features.

He was a beautiful man. And a dangerous one.

His sodden breeches were clinging to his lean hips and powerful thighs like a second skin, giving Emma even less reason to doubt his words. She jerked her wide-eyed gaze back to his face, half afraid he was about to divest himself of the breeches as well.

“I’m doing it again, aren’t I, lass? Looking at you as if you were a trifle made from fresh strawberries…” His hungry gaze caressed the vulnerable pout of her trembling lips, then rode slowly downward, taking in the pulse beating madly at the side of her throat, the uneven rise and fall of her breasts, the provocative way the damp fabric of the nightdress was clinging to
the mound between her thighs. His burr deepened on a hoarse note. “And cream.” His gaze drifted back up to her lips. “I suppose next I’ll be trying to find another ridiculous excuse to kiss you.”

“Such as?” she whispered, knowing even as she did so that her foolish challenge would not go unanswered.

He leaned down and touched his mouth lightly to her ear, his whisper a low-pitched vibration that made her shudder with desire. “Because I’m bluidy tired of bread and water.”

Before her chest could hitch with another uneven breath, Jamie’s mouth was on hers, devouring her lips with such delectable tenderness it was impossible to resist inviting him to partake even more deeply. Her arms went around his neck as his tongue parted the ripe softness of her lips, urging her to join the feast. Her tongue danced over the smoky velvet of his with a wanton hunger that shocked even her. This wasn’t just a tantalizing taste of pleasure. It was a banquet for her starving senses.

His kiss made her crave delights she could not name. She yearned for something sweeter than honey and infinitely more filling than ambrosia. As she stroked her fingers through his damp hair, sweeping it into a veil of silk around their faces, he groaned deep in his throat.

If his mouth on hers had been pure bliss, there
were no words to describe the moist heat of it gliding over the sensitive satin of her throat, nibbling at the tender swath of skin behind her ear, giving her earlobe a sharp nip, then turning her startled squeak into a gasp of raw pleasure by gently suckling the place he had nipped.

His mouth captured that gasp with another ravenous kiss, warning her that his appetites could never be satisfied by pressing his lips to a lady’s wrist or stealing a chaste peck in some ballroom alcove.

Jamie Sinclair was no gentleman. He was a man.

Despite the ferocity of his kiss, his hand was irresistibly gentle as it closed over her breast through the damp fabric of the nightdress. He fit her softness to his broad palm as if she had been fashioned by God just for him. Any fears that he might find her lacking in comparison to the buxom Brigid were laid to rest by the reverent sigh he breathed into her mouth.

Emma had never dreamed such strong hands could be so gentle—or so nimble. Jamie tenderly brushed the callused pad of his thumb over the rigid bud of her nipple again and again, creating a friction so exquisite it was almost painful. She moaned and clenched her thighs together against a delicious little throb, his deft caress making her feel as if he was stroking her everywhere at once.

Taking her moan as one of invitation, Jamie lowered his weight, covering her fully. Although the
snow continued to cascade past the bedchamber’s darkened windowpane, it was impossible to believe she had ever been cold or that she ever would be again. Not with Jamie’s arms to warm her, his tongue to kindle a scorching spark of desire in the depths of her mouth and his clever hands to stroke that spark into a living flame. That flame soared to dangerous heights when he used one knee to nudge her thighs apart and settled his hips between them.

He groaned into her mouth, warning her that if it wasn’t for the rumpled folds of the nightdress and the wet buckskin of his breeches, he wouldn’t just be on top of her; he would be inside her.

Lacing his fingers through hers, he gently imprisoned her hands on either side of her head. Bracing the weight of his upper body against their intertwined hands, he rocked between her legs in a rhythm new to her but as ancient as the mountains surrounding them. Waves of pleasure began to fan out from the tender cleft where his body sought to join with hers. She arched her hips, straining toward him instead of away.

As Emma trembled on the very precipice of something both terrifying and wondrous, she realized she was doing it again—bringing herself and her family to the brink of destruction just to satisfy her own selfish desires. Perhaps she really was one of those women her mother had spoken of with such contempt: a woman
willing to sacrifice everything that was noble and proper and court ruin for nothing more than a few stolen moments of pleasure beneath a man’s hand… a man’s body. Yet even in that moment, she couldn’t bring herself to feel ashamed. She was too breathless with longing to feel anything but exultation. Oddly enough it was that lack of shame, that overwhelming sense of
rightness
she felt in Jamie’s arms, that shocked her into turning her face away from his kiss.

He immediately stilled, lifting his head to gaze down at her.

Although all she wanted to do was weep with frustration, she forced herself to meet his wary gaze. “Please. This isn’t what I want.”

Even as she whispered the words, she knew he possessed the power to prove her a liar with nothing more than a nudge from his lean hips.

The grim set of his jaw couldn’t hide the unspoken entreaty in his eyes. “There are things I could do to you, lass. Things I could do
for
you. Pleasures I could give you without compromising your innocence. He would never know. No one would ever know.”

Despite that innocence, Emma understood what he was offering. But she also understood just how much it would cost them both.

“He might not know,” she said softly, unable to keep the note of despair from creeping into her voice. “But I would.”

Jamie continued to gaze down at her as if weighing her words. With his fingers laced through hers and her thighs splayed open in wanton abandon, she was his prisoner in every sense of the word. She could still feel every inch of his manhood—hot, hard and heavy—pressed against her throbbing flesh. Mercy was his to grant… or deny.

He rolled off her and to his feet in one abrupt motion, as if to linger would make such a feat impossible.

Emma had been wrong. She could be cold again. It was almost as if the snow drifting past the window was falling inside the room, casting a chill no fire could dispel.

Without looking at her, Jamie retrieved his wet shirt and shrugged it on over his broad shoulders. The cut of his breeches made it impossible for him to hide his unabated arousal.

As he strode to the door and swung it open, Emma scrambled to her knees in the middle of the bed. “Are you going to her?”

He stopped dead in the doorway but did not turn around. “No, Miss Marlowe,” he finally said. “I’m going to finish my bath.”

Although Emma sensed he would have liked nothing more than to slam the door hard enough to rattle the rafters, he pulled it shut behind him with painstaking care.

As his clipped footsteps faded, she flopped to her
back among the rumpled bedclothes and gazed up at the ceiling, knowing she’d had no right to ask that question.

And even less right to be relieved by his answer.

E
MMA EMERGED FROM THE
cottage the next morning to discover the spell that had so enchanted her upon their arrival had been broken. Sometime during the night, the rain had returned, washing away any lingering trace of snow or magic. It was no longer raining but clouds still hung low over the glen, casting a brooding shadow over the clearing.

She had expected to spend half the night tossing and turning after sending Jamie away, but she’d been seduced into sleep by exhaustion, the lingering effects of the whisky and the irresistible warmth of the patchwork quilts heaped high upon the bed. She had awakened to find a plain but serviceable merino gown and a pair of thick plaid stockings draped over the foot of the bed. Hoping rather spitefully that they didn’t belong to Brigid, she had donned the garments and tugged on Bon’s boots before making her way downstairs. When she found no one to greet her but the grizzled old hound, she had sliced a warm slab of bread from the freshly baked loaf sitting on the table, slathered it with creamy yellow butter and wandered outside, nibbling on her pilfered prize.

Although several of Jamie’s men were already leading their mounts into the muddy yard, readying them for departure, their leader was nowhere in sight. She could not help but wonder if Jamie had come to regret his rash pledge to her. If he was even now still dozing in some cozy hayloft with a naked Brigid curled up in his arms.

Or not dozing, she thought, her appetite suddenly deserting her.

At that moment Angus—or it might have been Malcolm—came staggering into the yard with Malcolm—unless it was Angus—nearly trodding on his heels. Neither one of the twins looked as if they’d slept a wink. Angus was yawning and Malcolm’s heavy-lidded eyes were at half-mast. Emma winced as Malcolm stumbled right into the back of another man’s horse, earning himself a sound cursing from the man and narrowly avoiding a nervous kick from the horse.

The mystery of their lingering exhaustion was solved when Brigid came sashaying into the yard a few seconds later, a feline smile curving her lips and pieces of hay poking out of her tangled nest of curls. Her ample breasts were in even
more
danger of tumbling out of her half-unlaced bodice than they’d been the night before. Emma wolfed down the rest of the bread, her appetite miraculously restored.

The other men looked on in open amusement
as Brigid wiggled her fingers at the twins. “Farewell, me sweet lads,” she sang out. “I do hope ye can come again.”

One of the men let out a bawdy hoot while the others burst into laughter. As she preened before her appreciative audience, Brigid’s gloating gaze combed the yard. When she failed to find what—or whom—she was searching for, her gloating smile turned into a pout.

She sauntered over to where Bon was slipping a bridle over the head of his sorrel. “Ye can give yer cousin a message for me,” she said, her voice loud enough to carry all the way down the mountain. “Tell him Angus and Malcolm are twice the mon he’ll ever be.”

Giving her curls a saucy toss, she continued on to the cottage, plainly aware that every mans’ gaze in that clearing was glued to the exaggerated roll of her shapely hips.

“Or one might argue it took two men to replace Jamie in the lass’…er…
affections,
” Bon pointed out when she was gone, earning a fresh round of laughter from his companions.

Emma gingerly picked her way through the mud to Bon’s side. Giving his sorrel’s sleek russet throat a shy stroke, she asked, “Have you seen Mr. Sinclair this morning?”

Returning his attention to his task, Bon jerked his
head toward the mouth of a narrow path that wound away from the clearing and deeper into the forest. Emma frowned. Bon wasn’t like the other men. It wasn’t like him to avoid her eyes.

She was turning to follow the path when he muttered, “Mind yer step, lass. It can be treacherous out there.”

Unsettled by his warning, she followed the winding path through the forest. The rain had banished the snow and now the wind was rapidly whisking away all traces of the rain. She had never known a place with such mercurial weather, but she supposed it suited the rugged character of the men who called this mountain their mistress.

After traveling a short distance, she swept aside the gnarled branch of a rowan and emerged from the thinning trees to find herself standing on a broad bluff. The windswept glen below might have looked barren and ugly were it not for the gauzy mist of purple just beginning to creep across its rock-strewn face. The breathtaking sight gave Emma a sharp pang in her heart, almost making her regret she wouldn’t be around to see the heather in full bloom from that particular vantage point.

Jamie was perched on the edge of a large rock that bore a fanciful resemblance to the head of a sleeping lion, his sable hair blowing in the wind. His jaw was
clean-shaven, making him look both younger and somehow less approachable.

He glanced up as she neared, the pen in his hand poised above the scrap of foolscap resting on a smaller rock he appeared to be using as a makeshift desk.

Emma’s steps faltered. After watching Brigid return from her torrid tryst in the hayloft, she was only too keenly aware that if she hadn’t banished Jamie from her bed last night, it could have been
her
curls in such wild disarray,
her
lips flushed and swollen from his kisses,
her
eyes misty with memories of the forbidden delights they had shared.