In Bed with the Highlander Read Online Free Page A

dizzy, it might be lack of food?” Not to
mention hot mind-blowing kisses.
    “Och, aye. It is hungry I am.” The word hungry came out like a growl and lit another fire in her belly. She
forced herself to ignore it. The man needed proper sustenance.
    The kitchen would have closed hours ago. The little Scot who
welcomed her hadn’t said a word about room service. She shook her head. How did
one ask, when one didn’t have a phone? Or did she? She glanced around for her
purse. No sign of it on the dressing table or anywhere else. Hmm. In the old
days, to summon servants, they had a bell pull. No sign of anything like that
hanging on the wall.
    “I’m sorry. I don’t have any food.” Not even the remains of her
evening meal, apparently.
    “We’ll go down to the kitchen,” he said. “There’ll be bread and
cheese and maybe some meat.”
    Oh, right. Just waltz into a hotel kitchen and get caught
stealing food. “I don’t think so.”
    “Why not?” He slung on his sword belt, buckled it and slid the
sword home. “The laird will not mind.”
    “Will he not?” Oh, now she sounded just like her grandmother.
“I mean, won’t he?”
    He raised a brow. “I told you, he’s a cousin.”
    “Actually, you didn’t. But if you are comfortable wandering
around the castle at night, who am I to stop you?”
    “You’ll come with me, lass.”
    It wasn’t an invitation. She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not
hungry.”
    “Aye, well, I’ve not yet satisfied myself exactly who you are
and I’m not leaving you here to sound the alarm.”
    Alurrrum . Her bones melted at the
way he said it. Delicious. Her stomach growled. She pressed her hands to her
waist.
    Both of his eyebrows shot up.
    “I suppose a bite to eat wouldn’t go amiss,” she said, defeated
by an old habit of midnight snacking.
    “Come with me, then.” He grabbed her hand and before she knew
it she was padding barefoot out of the room and down the winding cold stone
steps.
    * * *
    The cold hand clutched in Gavin’s felt like a bird’s
wing. Delicate bones he could crush on a whim. He eased his grip. He might not
trust her, but he had no wish to cause her harm.
    Who was she? She sounded like a Sassenach and swore like a Highlander. He grimaced. A male
Highlander. What a strange mix of a female she was, but he would not risk
leaving her up there in his room. First off, she might be an English spy, though
Duncan would have warned him by a candle in the old tower if such a creature had
arrived at his castle. And second, he feared she might disappear like one of the
auld folks in the faery stories his mother used to tell.
    Mother used to say he had more than a touch of the fae himself,
though he always denied it. His gut tensed. It had to be the whisky. Food. With
food in his belly, he would be able to think. And perhaps he’d be able to resist
those eyes and the wonderful scent that clung to her skin and infused her
glorious mop of russet curls.
    The stairs brought them down at one end of the laird’s great
hall. She halted. Her gasp of surprise had him turning to see what was amiss. In
the light from the torches, her eyes were black pools with glowing points of
reflected flame.
    “What is it?” He glanced around, seeking the danger that had
her stock-still and horrified.
    “This,” she said with an all-encompassing gesture. “This hall.
The rushes. The banners. The benches.” She swallowed. “All of it.”
    Perhaps she was a faery. She certainly seemed a little tetched
in the head. “Do you want to sit down? Perhaps some wine...”
    “The last thing a crazy person needs is more alcohol.”
    “Crazy?”
    “Never mind.” She straightened her shoulders, looked him
directly in the face and nodded. “Take me to the kitchen. Feed me. Perhaps
something will happen to wake me.”
    Unable to comprehend a word of it, he decided to let it lie for
now. They passed behind the screen and into the vaulted domain of Glencovie’s
cook. Fortunately the old