He felt warning creep up his spine. He should look away,run.
But he stared into the alluring sparkle of eyes too dark to see and played a softer tune on his flute, one about an unfaithful lover and a chance-met maiden. Did she know it? If she did, she gave no sign. She moved closer, walking around the outside of the crowd that surrounded him, step by step. She moved gracefully, flowed, and the color of her gown shifted and changed with every step, every breath, making him anticipate the next one.
Could he smell her perfume? Impossible—she was more than a dozen feet away, yet he was suddenly surrounded by the fragrance of wildflowers, something infinitely feminine and tantalizing. His body responded, grew hard.
He played a wrong note and grinned an apology at his audience, but hers was the only opinion that really mattered. She hadn’t seemed to notice.
Slowly the rest of his audience drifted away, but she stayed.
“Do you play?” he asked, holding the flute aloft, meaning that, and yet so much more.Would you like to?
“I play the harp a little,” she said. Her voice was low and soft and musical, her accent lilting, full of the Highlands. It playedhim.
“May I?” He held out his hand to her and waited. After a moment’s hesitation, the touch of her cool fingertips was startling.
He turned her palm up to the light and ran his thumb over the tips of her fingers, felt the calluses.
“You play more than a little. You’re good.”
She lowered her gaze behind the mask and tightened her mouth slightly. “I—I am,” she said modestly. “I practice.”
“What else are you good at? What else do you practice?” he asked, keeping his tone teasing. He knew better than to flirt with her, a stranger—she could be anyone, forbidden fruit—but the unknown was as tempting as it was dangerous.Shewas tempting. In a moment he’d release her hand, bow, grin, and walk away, before their flirtation—or whatever this was, this sensation of his brain turning to mush while his cock hardened—turned to more.
She didn’t reply, seemed tongue-tied, lost for a response. She didn’t know how to flirt, he realized. It drove his curiosity higher still. She flicked her tongue over her lips, and he almost groaned. His own mouth tingled, and he was suddenly desperate to kiss her.
“A drink,” he muttered.
“What?” she said, her voice smoky.
“Would you like a drink? I suddenly find it warm in here—too many candles perhaps, or too many people.” But it was only one woman, one flame, that did it.Her hand trembled slightly in his—he hadn’t realized he was still holding it, but he wasn’t inclined to let it go now. He watched the lace that edged her bodice shiver as she took a breath, knew the lady was as affected as he. Could he still walk away? He tried to focus, to speak of ordinary things, make light, polite, conversation. “Alasdair Og brings wine all the way from France by ship. It is sweet, potent, and quite delightful,” he said.
“I know.”
“Do you?” He wondered again who she was.
“It was served earlier.”
“Ah.”Of course. It wasn’t a mystery. Everyone in the room knew. They were all drinking the sweet white wine.
She caught the edge of her lower lip in small white teeth. “It’s a warm night. Cold water is what’s needed.”
Aye, and plenty of that, John thought—a mile-long swim across a freezing Scottish loch, perhaps.
Naked. With her.
He winced at the unbidden image and shook his head to clear it. “There’s a well in the garden. The water is always cold.”
“Will you—direct me to it?” she asked.
He scanned the mask, the sparkle of her eyes, the lush, plump softness of her lips.Walk away, his mind warned him, even as he offered her his arm. “I’ll show you.”
She laid her left hand on the rough sleeve of his shirt, and he stared at her long fingers for a moment.No wedding ring.
He led her out the door and through the bailey, his heart pounding as if he’d been running. He could hear the sea, and he skirted the keep toward the rose garden. He could smell the heady scent of the flowers before they reached them, knew that there were bowers there, dark and deep and secret. And the well, of course—first he’d slake her thirst . . .
She didn’t hesitate—she came with him, her hand on his arm, her pace matching his, her slippers soundless, even on the gravel path. He could hear only his own booted footsteps, loud and eager.
“There,” he said, pointing to the well. The pale stone structure shone in the moonlight. He stepped forward to crank the winch and lower the bucket.
