Highlander's Beautiful Liar A Scottish Medieval Highlander Romance Historical Novel - Adamina Young Page 0,71

he’d have her nearly naked.

Her eyes widened, and she squeaked. “Stephen. I thought you were Emily. She was supposed to come help me dress, but it’s been nearly an hour. I can’t do the buttons myself.”

Male voices lingered in the hall and drew closer. Soon, they’d have company. Without thinking, he maneuvered himself inside and quickly shut the door before more people got an eyeful of her.

“Turn around,” he said gruffly, and when she complied, he instantly regretted it. In Scotland, women dressed for the cold, and there was no way that the thin chemise she wore under her dress would protect her from anything. Before he did something that he truly regretted, he roughly pulled her dress up before doing the buttons.

Every time his knuckles skimmed along her back, she shivered.

“What are you doing here?” she said finally. “I haven’t seen you in days.”

“Patrolling. Night shift. Saw Cora. She wanted me to take you to the ruins. Said you were planning on going today.” Great. Now he could barely string a coherent sentence together. His fingers seemed to grow even thicker as he wrestled with the buttons.

It wasn’t the only thing thickening.

“Cora said I wanted to go to the ruins today?” Lana said carefully. “That was kind of her.”

Finally, he was finished, though he could not help but take another second to gently run his hand through the strands of her hair. Why the bloody hell wasn’t it up in a braid? Was she trying to kill him?

Then, furious with himself, he quickly took care of the problem for her, winding her thick strands into a simple twist before he tossed it over her shoulder. She caught it quickly and turned to stare at him.

“Ribbon?” he asked her.

“Right. I suppose you get your practice from undoing women’s braids and their dresses.” Her cheeks pinked a little at the words, but she didn’t lower her gaze as she snagged a ribbon from the dress and hastily tied the end of her braid.

The brazen lass was going down a dangerous road. “Actually, I had a younger sister that I raised on my own, but ’tis interesting that is what is on yer mind.”

“Everyone always talks about Jamie being the dangerous one, but Jamie was not the one who kissed me senseless two years ago.”

So she did remember the kiss. Good. It was a kiss that haunted him. Those soft lips. The sweet taste of her mouth. The little whimper caught in her throat.

For two years, he’d obsessed over little more than Lana Thistle and the kiss he’d stolen from her. While she was on English soil, he told himself that he would not touch her again. She was destined to be a countess or a duchess.

But she wasn’t on English soil anymore, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep his hands off her.

“Lana. What did ye come here for?”

She gave him the prettiest smile. “I told you. To find a highland husband.”

“Why?”

“Because I want someone to look at me the way that Alec looks at Cora.”

“And no one in England does that?” They were all idiots if that was the case.

“No.” She frowned. “Cora used to think that she would ruin my seasons because of her mother, but ever since people found out that I was related, if not by blood but by love, to a powerful highland laird, they’ve been falling all over themselves to impress me, to wed me, to trap me. I have had enough.”

“Ye think here, in Scotland, ’twill be any different? We play into politics, lass, and here, we play for keeps. Or have ye forgotten how Alec and Cora wed? The clans know how Alec cares for ye.”

Lana just shrugged. “I’ll know if someone wants me for Alec’s power.” Brazenly, she reached out and touched his chest. “Or if someone wants me for me.”

She was playing with fire. No one knew that he was in her room. He could pull her down to the bed, hike up her skirts, and play out the fantasy that he’d been having since she was eighteen years old.

“Open the door. If the hall is empty, I’ll take ye to the kitchens for some breakfast and then we’ll ride out to the ruins.”

Batting her eyes, she grinned. “No chaperone.”

“Ye forget, I have been watching ye for three years now. I know just what quick work ye make of chaperones.”

With a smirk, she opened the door and walked out.

Her dress twisted around her sated body, Cora curled up around