Or stop his ears from straining to catch a lighter sound, one he waited for each night: Rhona’s footfalls as she neared his door with an ewer of wine.
A nightly ritual.
An innocent game he suspected she concocted to make him feel like the lord he wasn’t.
Thelaird’s due, she called it. Something she claimed he needed before retiring – his wine cup replenished.
Scowling, he almost hurled the empty chalice out the opened window. Instead, he clenched his fingers around its cold stem until his foul mood receded. He didn’t need spirits to aid his slumber.
He needed Rhona. Her open arms and willing kisses. Not the libations she dispensed so sweetly each night.
Nae, not sweetly.
Provocatively.
For, of late, she often appeared at his door with the neckline of her gown dipping so low, he’d swear she purposely altered them, or at the least, loosened their ties.
And all to torment him with a bounty offered but not served.
Sure of it, he turned away from the windows and returned to his chair. He settled onto its cold oaken seat with aharrumphangry and bold enough to suit the most jaded laird-watchers.
Then he cradled his empty wine cup in the palm of one hand and waited for the light footfalls and quick tap-tapping on his door that would herald another torturously sweet visit by the lass he hoped to make his own.
He also waited for the coming dawn and his first lesson in lordly sword wielding. Instruction in the fine art of being a braw Scottish laird.
Lessons offered and taught by an English knight.
The irony stung his pride but also gave him hope.
Hope enough to chisel a bit of the scowl off his face and inspire him to thank the saints for his saucy lass and her meddling ways.
Chapter 19
“Iwill make you a bargain, my lady.” Sir Marmaduke examined the red-gleaming facets of his signet ring’s sizable ruby, feigning greater interest in the gemstone than in the look on Lady Caterine’s face.
She wore an expression unflattering enough to dash all hope of the advantage he’d thought to gain from the spy chamber’s dimness.
Even so, he braved her unblinking stare, trusting that the slight narrowing of her eyes had more to do with her stubborn pride than any true aversion to his intentions.
“I do not like to bargain,” she said at last.
“Then a promise.”
“What kind?” She glanced at his ring.
Good. It was the perfect focus for what he was about to say.
“Lady, I am not an untried youth,” he began. “I am a man, and fully equipped with the usual accoutrements, I assure you. I will not promise you a chaste marriage bed for that would be a falsehood before the words left my tongue.”
He raised her hand to his lips. “But I swear I shall never touch you intimately lest you will that I do so.”
Her eyes flew wide. “Meaning you shall touch me innon-intimate ways? At will? As it suits you?”
“Nay, my lady, my desire is to suit your will.”
“Perhaps I do not wish to be suited?”
“Then, once you are mine, I shall be the more hard-pressed to convince you otherwise.” He released her hand. “And to please you.”
