Seduced by a Highlander Read Online Free Page A

own. She offered him no coy smiles from her naturally coral lips. The soft blush of her cheeks was real and unguarded. She knew he was a rogue, thanks to Eleanor Hartley’s leaving her cover and fleeing back to the palace, but quite astoundingly she pointed out his virtues instead of dwelling on his shortcomings.
    He smiled to himself as he rose from the bench. She was an innocent, and the thought of seducing her made his nerve endings burn with thrill of such a challenge.
    But hell, she called him gallant. No one had called him that, or anything even close to it, in ten years. She spoke about shining armor, and it stirred memories he’d locked away in a place he’d never thought to visit again. He didn’t want to go there now. Whatever he had wanted to become when he was a lad was destroyed the day he fought with Alex Fergusson.
    He set his gaze toward the Banqueting House, where supper was likely being served right now. His kin would be sitting at their guest table laughing over warm mead or ale, mayhap retelling an old battle story or discussing the news that their cousin Angus had brought them yesterday about Tristan’s brother Rob saving a nun from a burning abbey. He didn’t want to go there either. For while he could wield a sword as well as any warriors of Camlochlin, he had no desire to fit in with his kin’s Highland code of pride, arrogance, and vengeance. He preferred disarming a man—or a woman—with his wit rather than with his blade. It was a distinction that, sometimes to his deep regret, set him apart from his father, a distinction he had perfected nonetheless, until there was no favor he could not win, no opinion of him he could not alter—if he had a mind to do so.
    For a moment, he stood alone in the twilight, caughtbetween the two worlds he had rejected. His thoughts returned to the lass… Iseult… and the way she had smiled up at him when he offered her his aid. He could have stayed in that moment forever. But she was wrong about him. He should have told her the truth and made her believe him. He was a thoughtless rogue who only wanted to bed her and then leave her before she formed an attachment.
    Or worse, before he did.
    Finally deciding which way to go, he turned on his heel and was about to leave Whitehall through the west gate when a dulcet voice called his name.
    He turned and saw Lady Pricilla Hollingsworth, a dark-haired beauty who had caught his eye when he first arrived at the palace.
    “I missed you in the Banqueting House,” she said, hurrying toward him. “Are you alone?”
    His eyes roved over her parted lips and then lower, to the swell of her powdery white bosoms tightly confined in her low-cut gown.
    “Fortunately, no’ anymore.” Slowly, he raised his gaze to hers and smiled.
    “Lovely.” Her mouth curled with the same decadence that shone in his. “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?” Without waiting for his reply, she looped her arm through his. “Lady Hartley told me that you are a Highlander. I’ve heard many titillating tales about Highland men.”
    “No’ more titillatin’ than the tales I’ve heard aboot English ladies, I’m certain.”
    She giggled, exaggerating the shiver he apparently sent down her spine. “Oh, I do adore that lilt to your speech. It is both savage and graceful together. Much like your appearance.”
    Damn, she was eager. This one needed no pretty wordsbut desired something a wee bit more feral in nature. As he had claimed earlier, aiding lasses was what he did best.
    “Dinna’ let my ruffled attire fool ye, lady. What lies beneath is purely animal.”
    “Why, Mister MacGregor!” She threw her hand to her chest in feigned offense. “I am a lady!”
    It occurred to him when her hand sprang away from her milky cleavage that she might go a step further in her game of cat and mouse and actually slap his face. Instead, she pressed her delicate palms to his chest and pushed him deeper into the shadows.
    “But please”—she purred