to frighten the children and families with force. All he had to do was to coax, to flirt, to please.
‘Brief? I desire—’ she put emphasis on the word ‘—for it not to happen at all.’
He liked the word ‘desire’ coming from her mouth. He liked the shape of her full lower lip, the deep dip on her upper one. Her lips were shaped like a bow, as if an angel had pressed its fingers there to keep a secret.
‘But it has.’ He shrugged, pretending a nonchalance his body didn’t feel. ‘I’m here to get past our introduction. You are Lioslath, after all,’ he murmured. ‘The eldest daughter?’ He’d introduced himself when he came to the gates, but she hadn’t. Maybe some sense of propriety was needed, even here, in her bedroom.
In her bedroom, where she stood waiting for him. His anticipation tightened. Maybe she knew this game as well as he.
Her frown increased. ‘You came to this room not knowing who I am?’
Satisfaction coursed through him. She did know the game. She was coyly, if not suggestively, asking him to guess who she was. Flirting would be easier than he thought.
‘I know exactly who you are.’ He stepped towards her as she held still. The room was small; it wouldn’t take much to be right against her. ‘The lass I will soon kiss.’
Her lips parted as her brows drew in. She shook her head once as if answering a question inside.
Did she think he wouldn’t kiss her? Then she didn’t know him very well. Another regret for his delay. She would soon learn that he kept his word.
‘I am not fond of jests,’ she said. ‘Nor those who try my patience.’
She stepped outside the shafts of light and he felt the loss of vision. He might be within the gates now, but she continued to bar him with her sparring words. A game she clearly played well.
But it was late, and although he was known for his game playing, he knew when to steal forward, especially when he had the advantage. She was a woman, after all. He always knew how to get his way with women. She would be no different.
‘Come now, enough of this game,’ he said. ‘It is night and we are alone. Isn’t there something else you’d rather play?’
Play? Games?
Lioslath didn’t understand this man.
At first she blamed the lateness of the night, the way his voice seemed to reach into her. Blamed her continual hunger and thirst for her addled mind. She knew she was addled, because when he mentioned game, her mouth watered with the wanting of succulent meat. But that wasn’t the type of game he meant.
‘I never play games.’ She found the very word offensive.
He waved and she followed the gesture. His hands were finely tapered, with a strength and eloquence that was as unexpected as his voice.
‘Come, I’ve seen this ploy before,’ he said. ‘In the past, it has made the reward sweet. But we have waited long enough, love. Trust that my willingness to participate in this game you play could not be any truer.’
Was this man flirting with her? Since childhood, and until only recently, she’d been ignored. She slept in stable lofts and no man flirted with her. Ever. They wouldn’t dare.
No, it couldn’t be flirting. It was merely his abrasive ease with words, with manners, with everything. A man who thought himself charming as he used words like ‘lass’ and ‘love’.
He didn’t charm her, yet he didn’t seem to be leaving. She had a choice to make. The knife or Dog? It was late, a knife would make a mess she’d have to clean and she needed her sleep.
‘You need to leave now,’ she ordered.
With a wave of her hand, Dog rose. Bram’s eyes widened, not with fear, but with surprise.
‘That’s a dog? I thought it was a trunk.’ His grin changed. ‘Hardly welcoming having a—is that a wolf?—in your room, since you were expecting me.’
He took his eyes off Dog, which was foolish, or arrogant.
It didn’t matter. His time with her was over. It had gone on too long. She blamed her hunger, his voice, the fine movement of his hands. She blamed him for everything. It was time to remind him of it.
‘Aye, I was expecting you,’ she said, with as much scorn as she could paint the words. ‘Expecting as one does a plague, or a pestilence. And I welcome you just as much.’ She shifted her stance, getting ready to throw the dagger. ‘You need to leave. I’ve warned you.’
‘We haven’t begun, Lioslath. Why would I leave?’
He was arrogant. Vibrant. Too full of life. She made another signal and Dog, with a noise deep in his throat, came to her heels.
The sound always raised the hairs on her neck and she had no doubt it did the same to Bram. But he did not take his eyes from hers, did not see Dog as a threat, and so he forced her hand.
‘You need to leave because I was expecting you, Bram, Laird of Colquhoun.’ Lioslath stepped into the light, lifted the dagger, made sure it glinted so he’d know what she intended. ‘But I do not think you were expecting me.’
Waking in the morning and needing to relieve herself, Lioslath rose from bed, only to collapse as dizziness overcame her. She’d sat up too quickly. The lack of food, the continual hunger, had made her faint the past few days. Was her dizziness worse? If so, she knew who to blame.
Anger giving her strength, she slowly sat up. Anger that had only one direction: towards Bram...who had laughed. Laughed.
She still didn’t understand what had happened the night before.
Dog at her heels, and a knife in her hand, she’d readied to strike. At her most dangerous, Bram laughed as if she told the funniest of tales.
Startled at the sound, she almost dropped the knife. So she hadn’t, couldn’t have, reacted as he shook his head, told her he enjoyed her games and would see her the next day.
She simply stood there incapable of comprehending his actions.
Worse still, Dog, who never let prey escape, who should have attacked, abruptly sat, canted his head and stared as Bram eased himself through the trapdoor.
She didn’t know what was more incredible. Her own inability to attack or Dog’s sudden meekness.
No, she did know. The most incredulous moment was when Bram told her he’d see her today. He expected her to open the gates.
She might not have attacked, but she wasn’t opening the gates today. His grating laughter had ensured that. If she could shut the gates more firmly, or again, and preferably right in his face, she would. At the idea, satisfaction coursed warmly within her.
Desperate now to use the privy, she walked out of the room. Dog only lifted his head as he stared in her direction.
She
