Page 20 of What a Highlander’s Got to Do

If he was honest, he was able to leave her because there was always tomorrow.

And the hope that his resolve might falter.

* * *

He’d walked back to the Swofford estate after their tryst—such as it was—because he was not in any condition to ride.

His cock was hard and his mind was awhirl.

As she had done, he had surveyed the offerings of English ladies and found them wanting. He’d done his best to avoid the mousetrap because he’d never met a woman who so much as stirred his heart.

Oh, they’d stirred his lust, all right, but nothing more.

And he couldn’t bear to be married to a woman with whom he could not be himself. A woman who only wanted to discuss fashions or jewels or balls.

He needed more.

And he liked what he found in Isobel. He liked the way he felt with Isobel. He liked who he was with her. Maybe more than liked it.

It was a new experience for him, a man who’d been born into a powerful family, coddled by servants and revered by society.

He liked that she was strong enough to stand up for herself. To command her own destiny.

She was a glorious woman. Beautiful, smart, funny, strong.

In short, they would be an excellent match.

If only she weren’t a maid.

And then, of course, there was her resolve to reject each and every Englishman she met out of hand.

And he was one. Definitely. Irrefutably.

But she did undoubtedly find him attractive. In fact, she panted for him.

He took a moment, reveling in that thought. That heated memory.

Would it be wrong to lay his claim on her? Would it be wrong to acquiesce to her demands? To give her what she wanted? Here and now?

Would it be wrong to take what she was offering?

Probably not, if she was offering.

The decision that he would thoroughly seduce her on the morrow elated him.

But there was one prickly thorn in his conscience. There was something she did not know. Something he should have told her.

He was no stable hand. No poor English lad.

He was the very thing she despised, a London lord. Viscount Stirling, to be precise, the son and heir of one of the most powerful dukes in the land.

When she discovered his true identity, she might never want to speak to him again.

As much as it disheartened him, he knew what he had to do.

When she came tomorrow, he had to tell her.

He had to admit the truth.