Smiling wryly, she said, “Because I am overlarge and very plain in looks, sir.” When he continued to stare at her chest, sheadded dryly, “’Tis why my sisters stuffed me into this ridiculously small gown. They are hoping that the Buchanans will betoo busy ogling me breasts to bother to look at me face.”
He wrenched his gaze up at that, his face flushing slightly, and murmured, “My apologies, m’lady. It was no’ well done o’me to—”
Dwyn waved his apology away on a sigh that had her nipples peeking up over the neckline, and she muttered impatiently andreturned to trying to tame her breasts and force them back into her gown. Honestly, this was going to be an embarrassing stayif her breasts kept popping out like this. Fortunately, the dress she’d worn when she’d arrived here yesterday had not beenquite as tight as this one and she hadn’t been spilling out at every turn. Obviously, she needed to change when she returnedto the keep.
“No need to apologize,” Dwyn growled now, more annoyed than embarrassed. “This was my sisters’ plan, after all, and it wouldseem it works. Perhaps one of the brothers will be so enamored of me breasts that they won’t notice me face. Men do seem tolike breasts,” she added thoughtfully. “I think it must reassure them that their bairns will be well fed or something.”
Geordie restrained the laugh that wanted to slip out at her words. It wasn’t a bairn he was imagining suckling at her nipplesas he looked on them. Damn, but the good Lord had been generous with her bosom. Shaking his head, he forced his gaze backto her face and examined her features.
Dwyn Innes was not a beauty. At least, not an obvious beauty. She had a nice face, a straight little nose, a mouth that wasneither full and luscious, nor small and mean, but somewhere in the middle, and her eyes too were neither too small nor large.They were perhaps average, but the color was a beautiful clear blue that actually seemed to sparkle when she was amused, he’dnoticed.
And then there was her hair. Dwyn had it pulled back tightly from her face and set in a bun at the back of her head that wasas overlarge as her breasts, but it was a beautiful pale gold with darker highlights that he would have liked to see downand flowing around her face. Geordie imagined that now, but in his mind she wasn’t wearing the gown with its plunging neckline.Instead, she was naked, lying in the grass below the tree with her long hair spread out around her lush body.
Geordie shifted uncomfortably on his branch as his body responded to that imagining, his cock now waking from rest and beginningto poke up at his plaid. Leaning forward slightly, he rested his arm across his lap to hide it and then stilled as he realizedthe pose placed his face closer to hers, just inches away, in fact. Close enough to kiss, he thought suddenly, and then reachedquickly for her when she jerked back in surprise and nearly tumbled backward off her branch.
“Careful, lass,” Geordie warned, his voice coming out a husky growl. Releasing her once the risk of her falling passed, hestraightened and suggested, “Mayhap we’d best climb down now.”
“Aye,” she agreed, her face a little flushed, and then without another word, she placed one tiny slippered foot on the branchnext to his leg, braced one hand on the large branch she sat on and began to push her bottom off it.
“Dwyn!”
That shout from below startled both of them, but Dwyn physically started and he saw the way her eyes widened in alarm as herfoot slipped from the branch and she began to fall. Geordie didn’t even think, but leaned down and caught her about the waist,then dragged her back up and onto his lap. They both froze then, neither seeming to even breathe as another pair of femalesappeared under the tree and stopped to look around the orchard with obvious exasperation. They were both tall and pretty withdark hair and appealing features that were presently somewhat vexed.
“Oh, where has she got to now?” the lass in a pale pink gown muttered with irritation.
“No doubt, hiding,” the second woman, dressed in a pale blue gown, responded on a sigh. “Ye ken how shy she is.”
“Aye, well, she must work past that, Aileen, if she ever wishes to marry. Hiding is no’ going to get her a husband.”
“Oh, let her have some peace, Una,” the lass named Aileen said wearily. “The single Buchanan brothers are no’ here at themoment anyway, and we have harassed her enough what with taking in her gowns until she can hardly breathe, and constantlypinching her cheeks trying to give her some color. Besides, that bitch Lady Catriona and her friend Lady Sasha have both beentormenting our sister horribly. I do no’ blame her for wanting a moment to herself.”
“Aye,” the lass named Una agreed grimly, and then growled, “They are calling her horse face now, did ye hear?”
“What?” Aileen said with dismay.
“Aye, and they have taken to taunting her by calling her Whinnie instead o’ Dwyn too.”
“I thought I heard them call her Whinnie, but then decided I just misheard and they were saying Dwynnie.”
“Nay,” Una assured her. “And they follow it up with whinnying sounds too. I’d like to scratch their nasty eyes out for pickingat her.”
“They are like she-wolves scenting the weakest in the herd, separating them and then attacking,” Aileen said sadly. “I wishDwyn would fight back.”
“She is too nice for that,” Una said, somehow making nice sound quite disgusting. “And do no’ even bother suggesting it to her. She’d just make us feel bad for being angry at themand say they were obviously unhappy to act so and needed our sympathy.”
“Aye,” Aileen agreed with a faint smile, following when Una moved away from the tree. “I swear she’d have sympathy for thedevil did she meet him.”
“Probably offer him
