Page 18 of Reckless Desire

She nodded. “Tonight is the first time I have tasted it.”

“Shall we sit?” He indicated the divan beneath the swords.

Kenna took another sip, then sat on the right side of the divan so she could see out the open balcony doors. Pale moonlight silhouetted what she guessed was an ancient oak. Warmth rippled through her.

“So, tell me, Miss Ramsay, where has Sir Stirling kept you hidden?” Lord Wilshire asked.

She scrunched her nose in distaste. “He has not kept me hidden. My home is Skye. Have you been there?” Perhaps he’d grown up there like that cad Lord Newhall.

“I have visited a time or two.” He sipped his champagne and smiled.

The dimple in his chin appeared. The man was handsome and knew it. Just like Lord Newhall. Gentle society was supposed to be genteel at all times, but she’d never known anyone to be as rude as Lord Newhall. He didn’t have to like her, but he shouldn’t have pointed out that her ancestry explained her lack of breeding.

“How do you know Stirling?” Lord Wilshire asked.

“I assumed you knew.”

The marquess sipped his champagne. “Everyone is agog as to the identity of the young lady Stirling has taken under his wing.”

Taken under his wing. Sir Stirling’s interference was meant as a kindness, but the implication stung. She was a charity case, a poor relation. She and her aunt lived modestly, but on Skye, they stood on their own two feet. Would Lord Wilshire respond differently than Lord Newhall to the news that her ancestor was a bastard daughter of Robert the Bruce? How much less of her would he have thought if she’d admitted that she, too, was born out of wedlock?

“I am no one.” She finished her champagne.

“Would you like more?” he asked.

She recalled Stirling’s earlier words, “We have all night to drink champagne. Ye might want to drink a little slower.” She didn’t understand his advice. Why worry when she felt all warm and mellow? Still, she shook her head in answer to the question.

“How do you like the gentlemen here in Inverness?” he asked.

She grimaced. “They are annoying.”

“Annoying? How so?”

“They want to dance and take walks in the park,” she said, but thought, They are perfect gentlemen one moment, then oafs the next.

“You do not like dances and walks in the park?” He locked gazes with her. “You prefer more intimate moments like this?”

Intimate moments? She glanced over her shoulder. The two women who had been sitting near the fire were gone. She looked at the door to find it closed.

Kenna yanked her gaze back to him. “We are alone.”

He laughed. “And I have not accosted you. Are you disappointed?”

Her pulse quickened. She had partaken of a stolen kiss or two and walked on the path from the town to home alone with her friend John Cunningham, but he was like a brother. She’d never been alone with a man like Lord Wilshire. Except a little earlier, when she’d been alone with Lord Newhall. His lips had hardly brushed hers when Lady Chastity and Sir Stirling arrived. A shiver slid down her spine—then she remembered he’d insulted her before trying to kiss her. Why kiss her if he didn’t like her? Because he didn’t have to like her to want her.

She’d lived in Isleornsay all her life, but even there, they had local nobility. Baron Arren, the Earl of Calway. They were proud, powerful men like Lord Newhall and Lord Wilshire—perhaps not as rich, but each powerful in his own right. They took what they wanted.

“No need to worry, my dear,” Lord Wilshire murmured. He smiled that charming smile. “I will not eat you.”

Kenna wasn’t certain she believed him.

His eyes darkened. “Unless you want me to.”

She flushed.

He shifted a bit closer. “Would you object if I kissed you?”

“I am not a loose woman.”