She was blessed in a way few women were, with full breasts and a tiny waist that was emphasized by the golden girdle that hung low on her hips.
A woman like her could make a man forget his manners. His body hardened at the thought, surprising him again with the reaction. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had stirred his blood so easily. God’s truth, he loved a woman with sass, but the borderlands, despite the newly forged peace between their clans, were no place for a female alone.
“Come here, Harpy!”
The hound remained stubbornly at Broc’s side, peering up at him and wagging its tail amiably.
Good dog, he thought a little smugly and turned to study hisguesta little closer while her attention was on the hound. She looked a little like a courtesan, he mused—richly dressed to attract her pigeon. Though something about this woman’s eyes seemed far more innocent than her dress proclaimed.
She would be easy prey for men with ignoble intentions. “These woodlands are no place for a lady,” he apprised her. “All manner of dangers lurk here.”
She came nearer, her gaze shifting between Broc and the hound. “Aye, well something tells me that if you’re the worst the Scots have to offer, I suppose I shall have naught to worry about.” And she called her hound again to no avail.
Suddenly Broc didn’t feel the least bit charitable. Beautiful though she might be, she was the mostcantankerous female he had ever met. He ought to teach the wench a bloody lesson, never mind who she was. And the fact that she thought him harmless annoyed him beyond measure—especially if she was in fact a bloody Sassenach. She damned well ought to worry as he wasn’t the only one in these parts who loathed the English. Their love for Page MacKinnon didn’t particularly lessen their hatred of her countrymen.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Haven’t ye heard, lass… we Scots feast on stray women, bairns and helpless dogs? Lucky me, I seem to be blessed with two out of three and I’m a verra hungry man.”
She stopped in her tracks and blinked. He tried not to laugh at her answering expression, the way she cocked her head so uncertainly.
But she read the lie in his expression, and lifted a brow. “Even if I knew what a bairn was, I don’t believe you!”
“Why would I lie?”
“To frighten me, of course!”
If she had any sense at all, she would, indeed, be frightened. “Is it working?”
“No!” she declared.
Broc frowned. “Are you certain?”
She crossed her arms. “Do I seem frightened to you?”
Not nearly enough, Broc decided.
With a fearsome growl, he suddenly lunged at the hound. The animal yelped, bolting closer to its mistress, and Broc couldn’t hold back his laughter. Meager thrill though it might have been, it took the edge off his unwanted ardor. The last thing he wanted was to be attracted to a bloody English shrew.
Rushing forward, the woman fell to her knees, hugging the hound’s neck protectively, completely disregarding any threat to herself.
He frowned at her response.
Her eyes flashed with disdain. “Youare a very churlish man!”
Broc grinned. “So I’ve been told. But of course we Scots are all ruthless barbarians, don’t ye know.”
“’Tis true,” he persisted when she cocked him a dubious look. “We eat our bairns when they’re born weak and use entire trees for toothpicks after.”
She frowned. “That is utter nonsense!” she proclaimed.
Broc crossed his arms, standing his ground.
She gave him a coy little glance. “Though I have, indeed, heard you toss whole trees at each other in silly contests to prove your manhood.”
Broc lifted a brow at her reply. “Did ye now?”
She was a delightful contradiction, this woman. Dressed as befitted a queen, she knelt in the muck like a beggar beside her hound, hair mussed, eyes glittering with the spirit of a warrior.
He almost wished she weren’t a bloody Sassenach.
