A Scandalous Scot Read Free Page B

to the window and pushing open the curtains. She didn’t need a clock to tell her she’d overslept. The morning sun was bright in the sky.
    Panic clawed its way up her throat.
    She raced from the room, across the hall, and down the curved steps, her feet flying as fast as her thoughts.
    What excuse could she give her aunt? What could she possibly say?
    A ghost stepped out of the shadows. Just when she didn’t have time, she saw a ghost, one who stood in front of her and nearly dared her to ignore him.
    She couldn’t stop to admire him now.
    Instead of moving through him, or the ghost stepping aside, she collided with a solid chest jacketed in fine wool. Two arms reached out to steady her, but her momentum toppled them both to the dusty stone floor, Jean landing on top.
    Dark blue eyes the color of a Highland night stared up at her.
    For a long moment she stared back, horrified and transfixed. She could feel his heart thudding below her, and the solidness of his body against hers.
    “You’re not a ghost,” she said breathlessly.
    “I am not,” he said in a clipped English accent.
    He grabbed both her wrists, pushed up and rolled with her.
    A second later their positions were reversed and she was pinned beneath him. The savagery of his look made her pause for a moment before she began pushing at his chest. Not very successfully as it turned out, since he was still holding her wrists and didn’t seem inclined to budge.
    “Will you let me go?”
    He might not be a ghost, but he was definitely a stranger.
    She twisted her wrists. He had her firmly caught.
    “Will you let me up?” she asked, meeting his scowl with a frown of her own.
    “Morgan, you really should let her go,” a man said, humor in his tone.
    She glanced up to find another stranger standing there, smiling at both of them.
    A voice—the very last voice she wanted to hear—said, “What is going on here?”
    Oh dear.
    Jean closed her eyes, chided herself for her lack of courage, then forced herself to look up. Standing next to the stranger was her aunt, a look of shock on her face. Three maids, one of them Catriona, stood behind the housekeeper, each looking entirely too interested in the scene.
    The stranger released her wrists, got to his feet and began to dust himself off.
    Her aunt abruptly sank into a curtsy. “Your Lordship, we didn’t expect you for a number of days.”
    Your Lordship? Jean’s heart plummeted to her feet. For an instant she was light-headed. She knew better than to faint—no one would revive her. Worse, she’d probably receive a lecture for littering the floor.
    Standing, she shook out her skirt. Perhaps she was still asleep behind the bureau and this was just a dream. A quick look at her aunt’s face proved that to be a lie.
    “What are you doing, Jean?” her aunt asked, looking straight at her.
    She tried to answer, to form the words, but the ability to speak had abruptly disappeared.
    “I believe the girl ran into him,” the second man said, grinning. “They both went down rather spectacularly.”
    Her aunt glanced at her again. Jean nodded. There, she could nod at least.
    “Your Lordship, I apologize most humbly for the behavior of my maid,” her aunt said.
    “If this is the way you train your maids in decorum,” he said, brushing at his dusty sleeves, “I fear for the state of my home.”
    Her aunt flushed, before again curtsying, so low that Jean feared she would not be able to rise again, given her girth.
    “She will be suitably punished, Your Lordship.”
    Oh dear.
    Her aunt turned to her. “What are you even doing here, Jean?”
    What should she say? What could she say?
    She took a deep breath, faced them all, and lied. “I thought to get a start on the cleaning,” she said. “I knew what a monumental task was before us.”
    God whispered in her conscience, and her stomach soured as she spoke. Or perhaps her incipient nausea was simply because her aunt was staring straight through her, eyes searching