Highland Song (16 page)

She was afraid.

"You’re lost in thought. Care to tell me?"

He touched her cheek with a calloused fingertip. She moved back terrified of her emotional reaction to his soft caress. What bothered her even more was that Slade didn’t seem to feel anything save passion when he touched her or looked at her.

"This is all a game to you. I dinna ken why you want to torment me so. Why don’t you just let me go?"

"No game, Lainie. Remembering the way your passion blossoms when I touch you and remembering your taste is torture to me," he said. “I want you.”

Slade felt more than he was letting Lainie see. And he wasn't willing to tell her how very much she affected him.

When he wasn’t peering over his shoulder searching for shadows on the road behind them, he was remembering the moment when he had first breathed in the scent of roses and tasted the velvet hardness of her nipples.

But thinking and remembering was all he had done, despite the ever-present temptation of their evening campsites, where firelight beckoned and stars glittered against a velvet sky. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling someone followed. Rolling around on the ground with a cunning little fox was the kind of distraction that could be deadly--particularly if Jericho was the man dogging Slade’s trail.

If the reminder of Jericho wasn’t enough to stop Slade from making a fatal mistake, there was the fact that they would reach his estate by mid-afternoon tomorrow. His conscience was giving him a bad enough time as it was about bringing a woman wanted by the English for treason, a woman who had been Bertram's mistress into his sister's home.

And yet…

Slade turned and looked at the silent girl who was watching his with eyes the color of a summer sky.

"Tell me…"

"I was thinking about the highlands. And your promise to me," Lainie said, only half of the truth she was willing to talk about.

Slade’s lips tightened.

"Promises, huh?" he said sarcastically. "I should have known. What someone else gives you can take? Taking is all women like you think about. Well, we’re a long ways from your ancestral home. And I’ve a mind to convince you giving is always more satisfying than taking."

"I do want something from you, but it isn’t money or trinkets. I want my freedom and
your
asking a high price for it."

"You want your freedom, little fox. I’m in total control of that and in my mind the price isn’t too much to ask."

Slade rubbed the stubble on his chin and said nothing.

"Surely you can’t be afraid I’m going to cut and run with your evidence against me," she said. "My little mare isn’t a match for your stallion."

Slade looked at Lainie in the firelight. Without a word, he stood and strode away from her. He came back a moment later, carrying the journal in his hands. Still saying nothing, he sat cross-legged by the fire and opened the journal.

When Lainie didn’t move, he glanced aside at her.

"I think it’s time I found out a whole lot more about the little fox who turned spy. I wonder…"

"Why is I was forced to do what I did is not your business," she told him curtly her hands closing into tight fists.

Slowly Slade shook his head.

"Convince me," he said, watching her while he opened the book holding her private thoughts. "Are the answers in here?"

The look in Slade’s eyes terrified her. She knew there was nothing in there that would completely give away what Bertram did to her that long ago day. But she also knew he already guessed half of it. Warily, she scooted sideways until she was sitting next to him. By bending over his arm and craning her neck, she was able to see the journal’s faded spidery script.

The words were so familiar to her she knew them by heart.

I will never let myself forget that day--

"Those thoughts are private, Slade. You have no right to invade my world."

"I know," Slade said. "That’s why I’m so interested in them. If I knew what you were keeping from me, I might understand you better." His voice held a gentleness she'd never heard before from him.

"I don't want you to understand me," Lainie said, but she knew any argument she had with Slade, Slade would win.

I'm stronger than you. I taught you that first…

Lainie leaned
closer,
wanting to know what he was reading and preparing a defense in case his guesses came too close to the truth. She peered closer cutting off some of the firelight.

"You take it," Slade handed her the journal.

"You mean it?" A wave of relief swept through her.

"Yes," he told her. He was smiling in anticipation of something Lainie wasn't sure she understood. But she knew whatever it was she didn't think she would like it.

Before Lainie’s hands had done more than close around the soft leather, Slade lifted her and settled her in his lap with her back to his chest. When she tried to move off his lap, he held her in place.

"Too uncomfortable?" Slade asked.

"I don’t like this," Lainie said. “I want you to let me go,” she said stiffening.

"Too bad. Open the journal," Slade insisted.

"No."

"You don’t have a choice," he said dryly. "I want to know more about you. And I'm thinking this is the only way."

When Lainie started to move off his lap again, Slade held her in place with offhanded ease.

"I won’t force you," he told her in a calm voice. "But I also told you I wasn’t going to keep my hands off you." He shrugged. "I always keep my promises. What about you? Do you keep your promises? Or are you like all the other women I’ve known?"

"I keep my word," Lainie said through her teeth. "But I never promised to sit in your lap."

"Read to me. The light is good enough, isn’t it?" he asked. "Do you know how to read?"

She nodded to both questions, inhaled a long secret breath, and opened her journal to the first page. All the words on the page blurred. The feel of Slade’s body against her back, her hips,
her
thighs sent her pulse racing and her mind into a tailspin. She couldn't think. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart thundered against her ribs. She felt as if she were consumed by fever.

Slade reached around Lainie and opened the journal for her.

"Read aloud," he told her.

His voice sounded as casual as though he spent every night with a girl in his lap reading books.

Perhaps that isn’t far from the truth, Lainie thought.

"I should bring this to your attention," Slade said his voice soft, his breath whispering across her neck, "If what you read doesn’t catch my interest, I can always find other ways to amuse myself." His lips touched a sensitive spot below her ear.

The sensual promise in his voice was unmistakable. The heat racing through her was undeniable.

"I left the castle against my brother’s specific orders. I didn’t see a reason to stay inside. The spring sunshine beckoned and I knew the English soldiers had left," Lainie said quickly, hoping Slade didn’t hear the unevenness of her voice. "My maid went with me…"

Her voice fragmented as she felt the collar of her jacket tugged down in back. The warmth of Slade’s breath on her neck made her shiver. Goose bump ran down her arm. His teeth grazed her ever so slightly.

"W-what do you think you are doing?" she asked.

"Just read."

"I don’t think I can…"

The brush of his lips against Lainie’s nape stole her breath.

"Read."

"You’re distracting me."

"Ignore it. Read."

"I didn’t expect anything to happen. We had news Bertram and his men had left for London. Hawke had left with his new wife and…"

Lainie chocked back a startled cry as Slade’s teeth tested the softness of her skin with ravishing delicacy then his tongue followed suit.

"Don’t stop," he whispered.

"Are you even listening to what I’m reading?"

The tip of his tongue circled her nape. She trembled from his touch and she was sure he felt the tremor that raced through her and she wondered if it was fear or anticipation.

"The marriage infuriated many of the English aristocracy."

Lainie reminded herself of the promises that were made. She had agreed to let Slade try seducing her. Why on earth had she been so stupid?