“Aye,” he replied. “A verra good friend.”
“Hmph!”
So was this their secret meeting place? Her home? Had he abandoned her here to wither in the dark and cold?
She wrinkled her nose in absolute disgust. If so, these Scots had much to learn about wooing a woman! Her mother, at least, had been showered with luxuries and bathed in exotic perfumes.
“If this is all you offered the poor woman, ’tis no wonder she wed someone else!”
He had the audacity to chuckle at that.
“She wasna my woman.”
“All the worse!” Elizabet chastened, offering a baleful glance for his shameless confession.
As if that fact should excuse him!
“Nay, lass,” was all he said in his defense.
“Men are curs!” she said. “You live to eat, sleep, fight like bratty children, and you cuckold your fellows without conscience!”
He frowned at her, annoying her with his heedless attitude. “Och, she’s my best friend’s wife!”
“Since when did that stop a man?” She stood and railed at him, becoming outraged now, just thinking of the injustices her mother had suffered at the hands of men like him. “You bloody well think the whole world belongs to you, and it matters not what a woman’s desires are.” She jabbed him in the chest. “You pass her from hand to hand, whispering lovely promises and, all the while, you intend to honor not a single word!”
He started to speak again, but Elizabet was beside herself with the insult. He’d injured her brother, seized her against her will, and now he dared to stand before her and speak so casually of using some woman he hadn’t a right to!
“Ye misunderstand me, lass.” He was growing vexed with her. She could tell by his harassed expression.
“Aye, well, simply because you are possessed of a proud cock does not mean you can leave it to crow in every barn!” She knew it was a shocking thing for a woman to say, but she didn’t much care. Good manners were reserved for those one wished to impress. She hardly cared what this man thought of her.
“Good Christ!” His cheeks turned rosy. “Dinna ye ever hush, woman?”
“Nay!” Elizabet assured. “And when you kill me, I will not die silently. My screams will haunt you until the day you die!”
“I’m no’ going to kill ye, wench.”
Relief nearly choked her. “You’re not?”
He sounded incensed. “Nay!”
Well, he would surely ravage her at least.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Well… when you rape me, I shall scratch out your eyes from your pretty face!”
He stood there looking at her as though she were deranged, and then shook his head. “I’m no’ going to rape ye either, for God’s sake! And neither am I pretty!”
This time, Elizabet couldn’t keep the surprise from her tone. “You’re not?”
“Nay,” he said with far too much certainty.
It occurred to her suddenly to be offended—it was that something in his tone that sounded as though the very notion of touching her was abhorrent. Jesu! She sat here noting his beautiful face and body despite the gravity of the situation and feeling ashamed for it, and he obviously didn’t return the least attraction.
What was wrong with her that he didn’t want her?
What was wrong with her that she should want him to want her?
Dear God, it wasn’t that she wanted him to want her precisely, but that she didn’t want him not to want her, either.
