Highland Scoundrel (Highland Brides) Read Free Page B

first time she had shot her dinner. But she hadn't brought her bow, and though she kept a knife strapped to her waist, it would do her little good here.
    Concentrating for a second, she made another wild grab. To her utter amazement, the fish came away in her hands. It was beautiful, streaked in a rainbow of colors that flashed with metallic brilliance in the sun. But it was one long, slick muscle. Loath to leave the water, it wriggled madly.
    Shona wrestled to hold it, but the fish was slippery and her footing unstable. The mud oozed between her toes, and the sand sifted from beneath her heels, conspiring against her. The salmon jerked, the footing gave way. Shona shrieked as she slapped the water with her backside and slid beneath the surface. Silty water filled her mouth and nose. She scrambled wildly and came up sputtering, breathless from the cold, her hair streaming across her face like scraggly tendrils of doused flame.
    It took her a moment to realize something was odd. It took her longer still to understand that a small bream had become trapped in her tunic.
    No bigger than her middle finger, the fish was caught between her midriff and shirt and slapped frantically to be free. Shona squawked at the sensations, danced around a circle in an effort to shake it loose then finally stuck her hand down her neckline to fish it out. But it wriggled along her back and out of her reach. Finally, wiggling herself from the creepy feelings, Shona ducked back into the water, loosed her belt, and flipped up her hem.
    A current washed past, pulling the bream away, and suddenly the fish was free and gone. Shona let out a heavy sigh of relief and took a weary step toward shore.
    "Might you be keeping any trout in there?"
    Shona jumped at the sound of the voice, splashed back a pace then peered at the rocky shore.
    Through the mud, seaweed, and hair, she could just barely make out the shape of a man on the craggy ledge.
    Her jaw dropped. Good Lord, how long had he been watching her? she wondered, but when her vision cleared she realized the intruder's gaze was caught on her breasts.
    Snapping from her trance, Shona clapped her attention to the front of her shirt. Wet as a sponge, it clung to her like a peel on an apple. Her nipples stood out in sharp relief, even showing their darker hue through the fabric.
    "Heaven's wrath!" she hissed, and slapped her arms across her torso.
    From the rocky shore the intruder grinned crookedly. Even through her mess of hair, she could see that his teeth were ungodly white against his dark skin. "You'd best come out and check for eel,"
    he said. He spoke the Gaelic, but a kind of lilting old world dialect. "They can be decidedly unappreciative of a thing of beauty, but have a taste for tender flesh."
    Shona searched wildly for an appropriate response, then finally scraped the hair out of her eyes a scant inch and sputtered, "Who are ye?" The tone was much higher pitched than she would have liked, but the cold had settled into her bones. And if the truth be told, despite her...well, fairly extensive mishaps of the past, she wasn't accustomed to being caught in the middle of a frigid burn dressed in nothing but a man's saturated tunic and the meager shreds of her own tattered pride.
    "They call me Dugald."
    Dark Stranger, she translated roughly then cleared a bit more hair from her eyes, hoping against hope that this Dugald was merely some traveler she would never have to face again.
    To judge by his clothing and his accent, he was not a Highlander, for he did not wear the traditional plaid. Instead he was dressed in snug black hose and a slashed and puffed doublet that was undoubtedly padded at the shoulders. The costume had a decidedly Italian appearance. A rich Italian appearance. And he wore it like a prince, with his hair perfectly groomed and arrogance seeping out of every pore. Still, that didn't necessarily mean he was anyone important. Once she had met a man dressed like a jester. He'd turned out