Improper Seduction

back. “What you should do is return me to my father. That will gain you more from this bit of evildoing by my cousin.”

He clicked his tongue at her in reprimand. She began to turn, but he slid a hand around her body and pulled her back against his body in one quick motion. Bridget snarled and became a spitting bundle of resistance. Her flesh crawled with revulsion, making her struggles even more violent. She scratched and hit him without a care for the damage she inflicted. He released her with another mocking laugh.

“If ye are nae devoted to the man, why does my touch enrage ye, lass?”

“Because I am not some loose light-skirt slut, you mongrel! You insult me by trying your hand at me.”

“As ye insulted me so freely in front of yer cousin’s husband.”

That hard glitter appeared in his eyes.

“Oh, I see. You are repaying me, is that it?”

He shrugged. “Well, I suppose ye cannae be expected to understand the way respect keeps peace on me land. But it is a way of life for me. The moment I begin letting someone insult me is the day that a new challenge to my authority begins. Those most often end in bloodshed.”

“I see.”

“Do ye now?”

Bridget offered him a slight nod. “I can understand that our lives are very different and thereby require different actions.”

He grinned again, clearly amused by her response. Even knowing it, she still had trouble pushing her emotions down where he could not see them so easily.

“I’ll not be content to have any man’s hands on me who is not my husband. Yet that is no excuse for being surly this morning.”

At least her tone of voice cooperated with her resolve to maintain her dignity. Gordon lost his grin, his face becoming a firm mask of consideration.

“Is that why I hear that you spent most of this day looking toward England? Because ye’re longing to join the man ye fled from?”

Gordon snorted when her eyes narrowed at him, but she denied him any comment. The Scot shook his head.

“I ken, lass. I’m a stranger to ye and one that has taken ye in the hope of getting something for ye. There’s no foundation for trust between us. But I keep my word. Dinna fret that I’ll allow ye to return to England’s court. Ryppon will either give me what I want for ye, or I’ll take ye to the altar and we’ll find a way to make the best of it. I can be a charming man when I put my mind to it.”

“Do not bother on my account, sir.”

He reached out quickly, succeeding in touching her cheek with two thick fingers before she jumped away.

“Och now, lassie, ye need to stop all that worrying.”

Don’t worry? The man had a misplaced sense of kindness if he believed he was putting her at ease. Still, it wasn’t his place to soothe her. She was a woman, not a lost girl.

“Lord Ryppon will not come for me. I cannot fathom why you believe he will. Best that you return me to my father and gain your recompense from him.” And she did hope the ransom was a dear one, for her father was beginning to wear her patience thin with all his demands. It seemed quite fair that someone else in her family should have to suffer as she was.

Gordon’s eyes lit with something that made her step back. A burning determination that she had seen in Curan’s eyes when he looked at her.

“He’d better show, because I’m nae in the mood to search for another way to get what I want from him.”

And it wasn’t her.

Bridget knew it. Somehow she sensed that the Scot wasn’t any more interested in wedding her than she was in marrying him. He wanted someone else, and the truth of that glittered in his eyes while she watched. “I wish you every success, and it is of course a relief to hear that this is truly not about me.”

He drew in a stiff breath and crossed his arms over his chest once again. His expression became hard. Clearly the man didn’t care to know that she had read his emotions.

“Good. Then I’ll no be hearing that ye refused yer supper. I dinna need to think I’m starving ye.”

The laird in him was talking now. Thick authority edged his words, and his voice rose, ensuring his men heard him. He gave a soft grunt along with a solid nod of his head when he finished. Bridget merely stared back at him, content to let him have the last word.

Soothe the male ego … Marie had clearly known what she was talking about.

A moment later he was gone in a swirl of plaid wool. Bridget suddenly felt chilled, as though she stood on the edge of a cliff just waiting to see if her balance would fail. The image was well founded for the future looked bleak.

Would Curan come for her?

Doubt was cruel, and it sliced into her fragile hope. Gordon might believe she was smitten by Curan, but that did not mean Curan would shoulder the blow she had dealt him in fleeing. Which left her standing on the cliff, looking at the fall that would not kill her, but instead leave her suffering from her broken heart for too many years to endure.

“Synclair, you must not do this.” Justina tried to dig her feet into the floor, but her shoes slid easily across the stone surface.

The knight offered her no mercy. His hand was clamped about her forearm, pulling her along in spite of her resistance. He suddenly snorted and released her. Relief swept through her, but it was short-lived, for the man