The Hunter (Highland Guard #7)(82)

They’d been riding for about an hour when she finally broke the silence. “Go ahead. I know you’re angry. Just get it over with. But before you start yelling, I just want it noted that I only left the burn because I saw the banners and was trying to warn you.” He opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off. “I also want it noted that you weren’t exactly making friends in the village.” This time his mouth didn’t even open before she cut him off again. “You only had a dagger. I know you are an exceptionally skilled warrior, but you would have to have been a real phantom to fight your way out of that.”

He quirked a brow. Thought he was an exceptional warrior, did she? He rather liked hearing her say that. “May I speak now, or do you have anything else to say?”

She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze. “I’m done. For now.”

She looked like a penitent waiting for the lash. He was sorry to disappoint her. “You did well, lass. Thank you.”

He’d seemingly done the impossible: rendered her speechless. She could catch flies with her mouth open like that.

“ ‘Thank you’?”

He shrugged. “The babe was a stroke of brilliance.”

“Brilliance?” she repeated dumbly.

“I see why you have made such a good courier. I can’t decide whether you missed your calling as a lawman or as a performer on the stage.”

“You mean you’re not angry?”

He gave her a sidelong look while navigating the horse through a narrow clearing of brush. “I didn’t say that. You took five years off my life when I saw you coming down that hill—and another five when you started flirting with the captain.”

“I wasn’t flirting, I was distracting.”

He gave her protest all the attention it was worth—in other words, none. “ ’Tis a dangerous game toying with a man like that, but I have to admit, you sized him up well. He had a heavy streak of English chivalry in him. Not that I wasn’t about ready to take his head off for looking at you like that.”

She blinked up at him in the sunlight, looking so beautiful that he would have cut off a limb to be able to kiss her again.

He cleared his throat and forced himself to look away.

She was so quiet for a moment, he could almost hear her thinking. “You really think I’m good at what I do?”

The happiness in her voice made his chest squeeze. And the way she was looking at him … It was as if he’d just plucked the sun from the sky and handed it to her. He could get used to that look.

“After what just happened, I can hardly deny it.”

She shook her head, bemused. “I can’t believe you aren’t going to yell at me.”

“Aye, well, don’t make a habit of doing something like that. Not all men are as honorable as Sir Ranulf.” That, as it turned out, was the captain’s name. A bit of his anger returned. “Some might see fluttering lashes and a healthy display of cle**age as an invitation.”

She gave him a sly look over her shoulder. “You were jealous.”

“Jealous?” he blasted, outraged. “I wasn’t jealous.”

“It’s quite understandable—Sir Ranulf is quite a handsome man.”

If he’d been able to see straight, he might have noticed the wicked twinkle in her eye. But he was too furious. “Handsome? That pretty popinjay? I wonder how much time he spent staring into the looking glass to trim that beard of his. There wasn’t a damned hair out of place!”

Only when she burst out laughing did the haze clear his eyes. His eyes narrowed, realizing she’d teased him into revealing far more than was wise.

The minx fluttered her eyes and leaned forward, giving him a bird’s-eye view of that spectacular cle**age. “And what of you, Ewen? Are you the type of man to view it as an invitation?”

For one foolish moment he let himself look. He let his eyes plunge the wicked depths between her br**sts. He gorged himself on the fullness, the roundness, the silky softness of the creamy white skin. He could almost taste her …

He sucked in his breath at the force of the heat that gripped him. At the knife-edge of lust that roared through his blood. As if guessing his pain, she slid her bottom back in the saddle against him. Nudging.

It took everything he had not to grab her hips and rub her harder against him. Only the cool challenge in her eyes stayed his hands.

“It’s not an invitation I am free to accept, damn it. And you know very well why. How do you think the king would react—or Stewart would react—to discover that I’d taken your innocence?”

She frowned. “Stewart? Do you mean young Walter Stewart? Why should he care?”

Ah hell! Ewen clamped his mouth shut, realizing his mistake. “He is my liege lord. His father vouched for my loyalty, and I will not see that repaid by embarrassing the son.”

She appeared chastened, his explanation seemingly satisfying her. “So it is Robert’s reaction that worries you? You think he would punish you for being with me?”

Think? Ewen gave her a hard stare. “I know he would. And he would have every right to. You are his sister-in-law, for Christ’s sake. I am the chieftain of a disfavored clan with one finger of land left of a once great lordship. My clan is hanging on by a thread, Janet. Any hope I have of recovering that land rests with the king.”