His Judas Bride

Chapter 2

"Credentials, sweetheart?"

"Yes." Somehow she rallied. She had to. "There is something wrong with that?"

Now he slid his gaze over her, as if she was a snake, there was. The dress. She should never have let her father make her wear it. But the agreement around the table had been unanimous. If the stories were to be believed it was just the thing to distract Ewen McDunnagh. He was distracted all right. Just not in the way she'd hoped. They'd all hoped.

"Well, far be it for to tell you, but don't you think you're showing enough? Some of us lads here aren't exactly what you'd call accustomed to the sight of such feminine charms. It's not me. Hell. I don't give much of a damn what you show me. In fact you can show me whatever you want. I'd still sooner get a good night's rest."

Much as the desire flooded to snap her cloak shut she daren't.Besides he might be distracted yet. Then she'd feel stupider than a headless donkey for doing that. No. The thing was to keep this civil.

"Not what I hear, my lord."

"That depends on what you hear about whom.But they're simple lads and they get excited easily. They have to keep themselves at bay. Isn't that so, boys?"

A chorus of ayes and whistles rang in her ears. When her father's letter and ring were what she'd been on the verge of showing him, too. Nothing else. The impertinent bastard.

"Now," Lord Ewen canted his jaw, "why don't you put your hand where everyone here can see it?"

Before she could open her mouth to protest, he leaned closer. Her throat dried. His thigh was a very handy option. And her soul a calcified shell, it had taken her less than five seconds to sell ten short hours ago too? Her body colder than the icy blanket of snow obscuring the trees and bushes around her? My God.

Should she though? And just end this? But debaucher or not, there was no denying Lord Ewen reeked sexuality like a dangerous perfume. Some people did. That was bad enough. The s****l charge, this current, was worse. Because it demanded a response in kind.

Under normal circumstances that would be the worst of it, not just worse. But the worst, was the honed, hardened edge and the sweet, sinful breath that said he knew her type. Perfectly. And said he knew why she was here, trying to get into Lochalpin too. Wanted to tell her she was good. To tie her hands, but couldn't because he was having to hold off. Really, really hold off.

Already her attempts to disarm him had resulted in her being viewed with the utmost suspicion, in Kendrick trying to take center stage as if she was an i***t.

Arland was at stake here. So this man's knee was something she'd leave well alone. Tangling with him further too.

"Sir, while I am happy to do as bid …" In her dreams she'd sort of not tangle with him anyway.But equally,if she was too obliging he might see she was here under false pretences. "I really must protest this treatment—"

"Which part of 'Put your hand where I can see it now' are you unfamiliar with?"

Her face burned. She snatched her hand from inside her cloak. "Satisfied? Well?"

He must have been because he edged so his breath brushed her cheek. "Is this how you think you can waltz in here, Princess? By bedazzling us with your"—he lowered his gaze—"breathtaking smile? because, let me tell you—"

"Oh, not at all, my lord. Actually, I thought my credentials would be sufficient."

"Well, they are."

"Good." Pray God he knew she meant the ring and the letter, even if she hadn't shown him the ring and the letter yet. My God. How could she? The way he stared down her front froze her to her horse.

He flicked his gaze over her shoulder. "To get you in here but not them."

Ice and stone. Not by a flicker, not by a gasp, could she appear anything less than controlled, although the words raised goose bumps on her flesh.

"My retinue, sir? I beg your pardon? The invitation does not extend to us all? But I thought—"

"I'm certainly sure as hell not about to start another five-year war with your damned father by picking and choosing. The invitation is open to you if you still want to come. But you come alone."

Alone? He must be mistaken. What was more he'd never started the five year war that she knew of.

"Now, let's go."

He wasn't mistaken. The audacity with which he grabbed her reins sent alarm scudding up her spine. In fact her hair would have stood on end were it not frozen to her scalp.

There was of course a secondary plan if the first one fell at the first hurdle. That was to go to Lochalpin. It was to marry Ewen McDunnagh. It was to spy. Then it was to escape.

It wasn't just that she hated the thought of what story might now get back to her father about her—messing this up, wasn't the exact word that had been bandied over her head this morning—when the consensus of opinion was she would. How could she bed a man like this?

She could possibly—she suspected any woman could possibly—and probably quite happily too. But that just might be the trouble, when he was sin and blood. She'd sooner yank her reins free and bolt back down the pass.

Yet, this morning she was the very one to swear she would go down to hell and marry the devil himself, if need be. Was she going to lose this—she hesitated to call it a heaven-sent—opportunity, her only chance to free, not just herself from the shackles that bound, the agony that tortured, but Arland?

"Sir, like you, I don't go anywhere without my most trusted advisers."

Yes. Yes, she was. Just listen to her, when she had opened the door of her heart once and knew perfectly well she would never ever walk these wild shores again. But imagine the devil doing this? Putting a man like this across her path?

"Are you meaning them?" Again that smile, the one that didn't quite reach his eyes, flicked towards her, although there was no denying impertinence still totally transformed him. "Boys—she thinks you're venerable."

In spite of her intention to remain calm she had to keep her fingers clenched on the reins. The impulse to reach up and strike him across his sardonic face was overwhelming. But she'd a horrible prescience if she struck him, he was the kind to cherish it. Cherish it? He'd view it as s****l foreplay.