Tall, Dark and Kilted (11 page)

Even so ...

She raised her chin. “You could have cracked my ribs, grabbing me as you did.”

“I warned you I’d no’ be gentle a second time.”

“You shouldn’t be here at all.”

His face darkened even more. “Had I known you’d be unclothed, I wouldn’t be.”

“People don’t usually stay dressed to take a shower.” She grabbed a towel, whipping it around her. “Do you?”

“I—” He turned a disdainful glance on the claw-foot tub and its wacky
boiler
. “I can think of better ways to keep clean.”

Cilla curled her fingers into the towel, clutching it to her breasts. “Such as?”

He jerked his head toward the doorway into her bedroom, where a large wooden tub stood in the shadows.

A tub that hadn’t been there when she’d entered the bathroom.

Lined with what appeared to be a length of fine medieval-y white linen, the tub brimmed with steaming rose-scented water she knew without testing would prove bath-oil smooth and just the right temperature.

If the tub were real.

Which, of course, it wasn’t.

She frowned and decided to pretend she didn’t see it.

His gaze went again to the pesky boiler contraption on the bathroom wall. “Aye, much better,” he purred in that silky-deep burr. “My style of bathing is more reliable.”

He stood proud, looking sure of it.

She couldn’t forget that she was naked. Or that her towel didn’t hide much. Something told her Scots tried to save on toweling cloth along with electricity and hot water. And the way
this Scot
slid his dark gaze over her, lingering especially on the swells of her breasts and the curve of her hips, revealed that he thoroughly approved of that thriftiness. At least regarding the size of bath towels.

Never had a man looked at her with such burning hunger in his eyes.

Or set off such a hot pulsing between her legs with nothing more than a glance.

She swallowed, sure he knew it.

The slight arcing of one brow said he did.

“Do you mind?” Her face flaming, she yanked the towel higher up her breasts. “Mister. . . .”

“Sir,” he corrected, his sensual lips curving oh so slightly. “Sir Hardwin de Studley of Seagrave.”

“De
what
?” Cilla’s jaw slipped. She resisted the urge to poke her fingers in her ears and wriggle them.

She couldn’t have heard correctly.

Either that or she’d eaten too much of the haggis filling in her chicken ecosse.

“Tell me again.” She eyed him, sure it was the haggis. “Who did you say you are?”

“Sir Hardwin de Studley,” he repeated, his deep burr rolling. “ ’Tis a good Norman Scots name. You won’t hear it much nowadays.”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“Friends call me Hardwick.”

That’s even worse!
Cilla almost blurted, but before she could, he flicked a finger at the wooden tub and it disappeared, his little sleight of ghostly hand making the words lodge in her throat.

“Since you chose no’ to avail yourself of it.” Sounding as if that were a great shame, he leaned back against the doorjamb and settled himself, his long legs crossed at the ankles.

Cilla stared at him.

He looked much too comfortable lounging so casually in her bathroom doorway.

She couldn’t let him stay that way.

Especially not when he continued his tricks, this time making a quick flipping motion with his wrist, and his shield appeared in his hand. Holding it loosely at his side, he smiled at her.

A curl-a-girl’s-toes kind of smile she knew better than to let get to her.

The man was all smoke and mirrors.

Walking danger, and she wasn’t even going to
think
about how his mere presence made her tingle.

His burr alone could stir a woman to climax.

She’d been hovering on the edge of one ever since his fingers had slid across her nipples. Heaven help her if those long, skilled-looking fingers ever came anywhere close to her clit.

“Look here, Sir Hard-whoever-you-are, I’ve already told you that your shield trick doesn’t impress me.” She tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “As for beaming yourself in here when I’m trying to shower, that’s just rude.”

“Rude?” Hardwick blinked, the heat in her eyes spearing him.

It wasn’t the kind of simmer he was accustomed to stirring in women.

“I think, lass”—he pushed away from the door and drew himself to his full height—“that you have no idea what it cost me to be here.”

“Then why are you?”

“No’ to see you naked!” The words escaped before he could stop them.

“Oh!” Her cheeks bloomed red. “I don’t believe this!” she cried, scooting past him out the bathroom door.

Hardwick scowled after her.

Good, if he’d vexed her into leaving.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t meant to do it thusly. And watching her dart across the polished—slippery—floor, grab a robe off the bed, and don it in all haste didn’t feel like the triumph it should.

It felt rather lousy.

Never had he seen a lass dress so swiftly. And rarely had he felt such an urge to bite off his tongue. He’d burned to see more of her nakedness. Ever since glimpsing her full, round breasts the possibility had consumed him, unwise as such yearnings were.

He pulled a hand down over his chin, furious with himself and his plight.

“You misheard me.” He spoke to her back, trying to make it better. “I meant, seeing you unclothed is the last thing—”

“So you’re not only rude, but insulting!” She whirled on him, her blue eyes ablaze.

“Holy heather!” He jammed his hands on his hips and stared at her. “You still dinna—”

“I understand perfectly well.” She yanked on the ends of her robe’s belt, making a knot. “And I’ll ask you again. Why did you appear in my bathroom?”

“Because I heard you scream.”

Her eyes rounded. “You were listening at my door?”

Nae, I was guarding it.

The true answer hung unspoken between them. She needn’t know he was troubled by certain goings-on at Dunroamin and meant to look into them.

Or that he hoped doing so would help him to keep his mind off of her.

His mouth twitched on that impossibility.

The great silvery Kyle would sooner dry up and all the noble peaks of the north slip back into the earth before he could put her from his mind.

She’d bespelled him more thoroughly than that wart-nosed, bent-backed bard of old could have done in his wildest conjuring dreams.

Watching her, he almost laughed at his predicament and would have if he didn’t wish to upset her even more. Seeing her naked had nearly undone him. Feeling her sleek warm skin, all smooth and wet beneath his hands when he’d caught her, was a torture he couldn’t risk again.

If he’d held her a moment longer, even the Dark One’s threats wouldn’t have mattered.

As it was, he’d almost nipped and nuzzled her neck when he’d bent to whisper in her ear. He’d even considered slipping a hand between her legs and using one expertly circling finger to show her the kind of bliss a man could give a woman after seven hundred years of experience.

An urge that was surely responsible for causing one of the hell hags to gurgle a laugh from the shower. In the same moment, he caught a whiff of root-dragon’s breath, its foulness chilling his blood.

He blinked against the lingering steam, certain the Dark One’s hags and dragons wouldn’t sneak so openly into this earthly realm. Yet he swore he saw sharp nails and the flash of a scaly tail.

He shuddered, turning back to Cilla when the image faded.

Even now she tempted him.

Damp, disheveled, and wearing a Dunroamin plaid robe with her name stitched across the breast in ridiculously large letters, she stirred him more than any other lass he’d ever known.

Having seen her naked was a
gift
.

And a worse burden than the curse that had plagued him for so many centuries.

“So?” She was still staring at him, her gaze intent. “Were you eavesdropping or not?”

He frowned. “I have ne’er done the like in my life. Or thereafter.”

“Oh, that’s right.” She swept her hair behind an ear. “Let’s not forget you’re a ghost.”

The words ripped him. “Would that I could.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’d rather hear what you were doing outside my door.”

Hardwick considered how much he should tell her.

“Two lads carried coffers up here earlier and I followed them.” That was certainly true enough. He just didn’t mention he hadn’t liked the looks of them.

Tall, red-haired, and strapping, they’d struck him as too young, too bonny, and—most damning of all—too alive.

“Coffers?” She’d come closer, her blue eyes rounding.

Hardwick blinked, the two youths forgotten.

“Aye, coffers.” He glanced to where the strong-boxes stood near the shuttered windows. “They looked heavy and—”

“Those aren’t coffers.”

He surveyed them carefully, certain they were.

To his surprise, she laughed.

Not a mocking sort of laugh, but a light and breezy kind that slid through him with ease, warming him in ways that were more than dangerous.

“Those are packing crates full of chipped and cracked porcelain.” She went to stand beside them. “Uncle Mac never throws out anything, and he said I could have them. The boys you saw are Roddie and Robbie, Honoria’s nephews. Aunt Birdie mentioned they do odd jobs around the estate. They brought the crates down from the attic.”

Hardwick’s brows drew together. It annoyed him that she knew the lads’ names. Not to mention so much about their business.

Even more irritating, although he considered himself most enlightened to the ways of her world, he’d never heard of
packing crates
.

Nor had he suspected that Mac MacGhee’s fortunes had turned so poorly that he’d be forced to give his visiting niece damaged goods as a welcome gift.

The very notion made his heart sore.

“They’re beauties.” She’d opened the lid of one of the coffers—he refused to think of them as anything else—and withdrew a small flowered cup, lovely save the jagged crack in its side and a rather conspicuous chip at the gold-edged rim. “I’ve rarely seen such treasures!”

She held up the cream-colored cup for his inspection. “Er . . . humph.” Hardwick found himself at a loss for a suitable comment.

Instead, he stepped closer and examined the cup.

Decorated with pink roses surrounded by smaller flowers in purple, yellow, and blue, the design enhanced with a scattering of delicate green leaves, it would have been a treasure indeed if not so sadly marred.

Surprisingly, she didn’t appear at all disheartened by the cup’s flaws, which said a great deal about her character. She clearly didn’t wish to offend her aunt and uncle by seeming disappointed in their gift.

Hardwick frowned. He didn’t like the direction his mind was taking.

It served him better when she speared him with that fiery blue gaze.

For one thing, he now knew beyond doubt that a henwife couldn’t claim a hand in the color of her honey-gold hair. That knowledge alone could have dire repercussions if he allowed himself to dwell on
how
he’d made such a discovery.

It was one thing to imagine a sweet triangle of golden curls topping her thighs, all soft and inviting.

And something else entirely to have seen those curls!

Nor had he yet recovered from the pleasant ring of her laughter. How it’d warmed him. Learning she possessed a caring heart along with her fine curves and other charms was more than he wished to know.

“Here’s another.” She plucked a small flowered plate from deep inside the coffer’s strawlike filling. “Who would have thought Uncle Mac’s attic would hold such gems?”

“No’ I, to be sure.” Hardwick tightened his grip on his shield.

Then, because her delight in the pathetic wares apparently overrode her objections to him, he peered dutifully at the plate when she held it in his direction.

Covered with pink and deep-red roses, again with a few artfully placed green leaves and gold trim, this piece, too, had seen better days. A jagged crack zigzagged across its center, marring its onetime perfection.

She didn’t seem to see the defect.

Far from it; she beamed at the dish, her excitement clearly mounting when she turned it over and studied its underside.

“English.” She ran a finger along the crack, pausing over a line of squiggly black lettering. “Early 1900s, I’m guessing.”

Hardwick’s gut clenched.

She sounded overjoyed that the plate was not only damaged but, considering her time, quite old.

“Uncle Mac isn’t the only one in the family who loves old things,” she mused, her eyes misty. “This”—she hugged the cracked dish to her breast—“is just what I needed.”

“Nae, it isn’t. No’ at all.” Hardwick couldn’t help the denial. Every chivalrous bone in him railed against seeing her so soppy-headed o’er such shameful offerings.

Equally painful was imagining Mac MacGhee’s reaction.

A proud man, the laird surely knew his niece deserved better.

Unable to stop himself now that he’d spoken, Hardwick indicated the two coffers with a flick of his hand. “More’s the pity your uncle couldn’t give you something finer as a welcome gift,” he said, hoping his voice held more sympathy than disapproval. “A maid like yourself ought be welcomed with ropes of shining pearls and glittering gemstones, no’ cracked and chipped bits of cast-off cups and—”

She laughed.

A beautiful golden sound, rich and honey-edged, but damning in its portent.

Somehow—and he didn’t know where—he’d erred.

Just as embarrassing, he’d blethered on like a love-sick calf.

Ropes of pearls and glittering gemstones, indeed!

If Bran had heard him utter the like, he’d be the laughing stock of ghostdom and beyond.

He frowned, already willing himself elsewhere.

Perhaps Mac MacGhee’s armory, where he could claim a chair and let scores of targes glower down at him, each one reminding him of his plight and how he’d best hold his tongue—and his lust—around the laird’s fetching niece.