He snorted.
Her face darkened. “You asked, didn’t you?”
“For all that is holy, I donna know how to please you,” he said coldly.
“And I don’t know how to please you,” she snapped.
Her tone undid Arran—he strode forward, caught her by the arm and whirled her around. “Enough of playing the wounded lass, Margot. We are married, we are, and you may as well learn to live with it as fight it, aye? You are a Scot now.”
“Never,” she said defiantly.
Her eyes were glittering in the low light. Her hair fell wildly about her shoulders. It was funny in a strange way—Arran had always thought himself full of might, capable of anything. But he was a very weak man when it came to Margot. She was wretched and haughty, and yet he could see her youth and the abject vulnerability in her eyes.
He cupped her face with his hand, stroked her cheek. “I’m asking...no, I’m begging you. Donna make this harder than it is, aye?”
There it was, a single tear sliding from the corner of her eye. “I can’t possibly make it any harder than it is,” she muttered, and closed her eyes and lifted her face to him.
Arran, confused as he always was by her, kissed her. He drew her to the bed, removed her clothes, covered her body in kisses. And as he sank between her thighs and she drew up her knees and curled her fists in his hair, gasping with pleasure at what his tongue was doing to her, he thought that at least they had this. If nothing else, they had this.
Balhaire
1710
IF THERE WAS one thing Arran held as irrefutable fact, it was that the English and women could never be completely trusted. So when he heard a rustling about sometime in the night, long after the fire had turned to embers, he was not surprised to see Margot standing at his chest of drawers, one of the bed linens wrapped loosely about her.
He admired her for a moment as she rose up on her toes and examined the articles on top of the chest. One long, shapely leg was visible. Waves of auburn hair fell almost to her waist, ending a few inches above the curve of her hip. She touched his things, and her delicate, manicured fingers fluttered over the folded vellum that Jock had brought to Arran, an urgent message from the chieftain of the MacLearys of Mallaig.
He silently rose up on one elbow, watching her as she picked up the vellum between finger and thumb and seemed to debate opening it.
God, but she was beautiful, he thought, as he carefully and soundlessly removed himself from the bed. It had been her eyes that had captured Arran’s fancy when he first saw her. Wide, deep-set eyes, the color of them reminding him of the moss that grew on the trees at Balhaire, and her gaze discerning. He’d known right away, before even hearing her speak, that she was a perceptive lass.
He’d also known, by the way those eyes had looked at him, that she’d been a wee bit beguiled by him, too.
He made his way to stand behind her and folded his arms across his chest. “What are you doing there?”
With a gasp, she dropped the vellum and groped around the top of the chest as she whirled around to face him. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Could you no’?”
She suddenly thrust a gold chain into his face. “Who is this for?”
“For you, leannan,” he said smoothly, and reached around her, pushing the vellum under a pair of gloves.
“That’s absurd.”
“Who else?” he asked easily, and pried the necklace from her hand. He’d actually taken it in trade for a pistol.
“Maybe the girl who was sitting in your lap when I arrived,” she said curtly, her brows dipping into a vee.
He frowned at her attempt to appear jealous and casually laid his hand across her throat. “Would I have loved you as I did tonight if this gold was for that wee strumpet?” He turned Margot about, pushed her mane of hair out of his way and draped the necklace around her throat. He bent his head to kiss her neck. He was aroused again and pushed his erection into her hips. “It’s yours now.”
“I don’t want it,” she said, but made no move to remove it.
Arran reached around her abdomen, grabbed the linen and yanked it free of her body. Margot didn’t resist; she leaned back against him, her hands sliding down his thighs. She was different than before. Now she seemed to understand the power she wielded over him.
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