“Please.” Those expressive blue eyes were wide and desperate. “Please don’t take me back there. If you do, something terrible will happen to me. Something I cannot prevent.”
“That isnae me problem. What do ye think will happen tomeif they find out I’ve kidnapped ye in a borrowed carriage from me host?”
“You care more about saving your own pride than a lady’s reputation?”
“Aye, I guess so.”
“You’re a brute.”
He grunted. “Aye. That too.”
He studied her for a short while, trying not to focus on her breasts as they rose and fell in her agitated state. She was truly scared of something, that was obvious.
“And how do ye ken nothin’ bad will happen to ye if ye come with me? Ye’re willin’ to throw yerself at me mercy? Ye dinnae ken anythin’ about me, save that I’m a barbarian brute.”
Her eyes hardened as she met his gaze, and for the first time, he saw the veneer of polite society fall away as the warrior stirred within. She looked for all the world like she could fight an army and win by will alone.
“Nothing can be worse than the fate awaiting me when I return. Nothing.”
Her slim fingers were twisting in her lap again. The movement made him uneasy. He did not like seeing her distressed. His fingers itched to reach across and wrap around hers to comfort her.
“I could come to stay with you as your guest,” she muttered, glancing up at him warily. “Only for a few days.”
Magnus crossed his arms over his chest and fixed her with a dubious stare as she attempted to convince him.
“In Ancient Greece, if someone asked for shelter, their request had to be granted,” she concluded.
“Och, aye? Well, this is the Highlands,” he grunted.
And just as he said those words, a fork of lightning split the sky above them, illuminating the carriage’s interior with brightwhite light. In the next instant, the heavens opened, and rain began to fall across the lands around them, drumming heavily on the roof above their heads.
“Please,” she was close to begging now. “I’ll do anything.”
He felt arousal rush through him at those words, imagining himself in another lifetime as quite a different man. Perhaps he would find her in his castle, alone and vulnerable, desire burning in her eyes as she promised to be his if he would just keep her safe.
“Anythin’?” he asked, the lust in the word coming through unbidden as he looked at her.
“Within reason,” she replied acidly, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him.
“Then it doesn’t seem that ye’re that desperate, lass.”
“You know nothing of desperation.”
“Och, aye?” he asked gruffly. “And what do ye ken about me?”
“You are a man! Already, you have an advantage over me.” Her voice was steady, her gaze unflinching as she challenged him. “You do not know what it is like to be a woman, waiting for the next order to be given to you by those who see you as beneath them.”
She looked out at the lashing rain. “I cannot live by my own rules. No woman can. Men come and go as they please. You attend balls on a whim, standing at the side of the room, dancing with no one. When it comes time to leave, you do so, having only spoken to your host. You depart without any comment being made against you because you are respected for your sex alone.”
She shook her head. “If I chose to do such a thing, I would be locked up in bedlam, or worse. My life is arranged by the whims of men. Nothing I do matters as long as I uphold my family name.”
Her fingers were plaiting the long strands of her hair now, a mindless activity that she did not seem conscious of. Magnus thought of his own need sometimes to occupy his hands when his mind was busy. Perhaps they were not so different, after all.
“I suppose if I were to offer to work for you, you’d be scandalized by the suggestion?” she asked.
Her question snapped him out of his reverie.
“Ye? Work?” he asked incredulously, imagining her scrubbing the pots and pans in his kitchen and fetching his bath water.
