“I cannot believe you climbed the wall to ask me!”
He grinned. “I suppose you are having an effect on me. I had to speak to you without everyone else around.” His expression sobered. “Eddie is causing problems.”
“Lord Liddican can do nothing to harm me.” She’d become a sensation all on her own.
“He is claiming all sorts of nonsense. Ridiculous things that the two of you have done together.”
She blinked. “Us?” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s disgusting.”
“He is a disgusting man. But with your recent notoriety, there are those who will believe it.”
“Someone always believes the worst.”
“The prince is one of them.”
Prinny thought her to be Lord Liddican’s whore? “You cannot mean that.”
“I mean,” he paused as he ran a hand over his face, “that between Eddie’s lies and this afternoon’s picnic, Prinny has decided you are worth meeting. Not in any official capacity, you understand. That’s what I’ve come to tell you. He’s going to visit the park tomorrow to see this tree you climbed. You should be there when he does. You should act demure and reassure him that you are nothing like what Eddie claims.”
She nodded. “And if I gain his approval?”
“Then you shall be set in society. If Prinny declares you respectable—”
“Respectable?”
“Well, ‘interesting’ is good enough. But if he says that, then Eddie cannot touch your reputation. No one could.”
She took a deep breath. “And what of you, Lord Heath? Will that be enough for you?”
He frowned. “Enough for me how?”
Enough for her to be a good example for his children. Enough for him to be interested in her as a wife. Enough for him to kiss her right here, right now, in her bedroom.
He seemed to see what she was thinking. Indeed, his eyes turned dark, and his body leaned closer.
“Miss Allen, you have always been enough for me,” he whispered.
“That doesn’t tell me anything,” she said. “I don’t know…”
Her words were cut off as he kissed her. Deep. Thrusting. Possessive. He seemed to want her in the most carnal way, and hotblooded Scotswoman that she was—she wanted him, too.
His tongue was in her mouth, taking what she gave. His hands were on her breasts, and she arched as he ripped her night rail away. She was naked as he abraded her nipples, hot as her belly pressed against his organ. And open, so open to him as he pressed her back to her bed.
She went willingly. He was kissing her breasts, spreading her thighs, and taking her body again and again.
It wasn’t enough. He was a big man. So why didn’t she feel him?
He was in her, hard and thick, and yet she couldn’t feel anything.
And then she knew.
This was adream. A beautiful, wonderful dream that could only end one way.
The wail began as soon as she thought it. The banshee scream burst through her room, swirling wind that screamed its own lament, “Traitor! You bed a Sassenach! Traitor!”
She tried to stop it but was too slow. She watched in horror as its claws sunk into his chest and came away covered in gore.
For the second time that week, Sadie woke screaming.
