Indiscretion Read Free

thinking about—her affair with the scoundrel, of all things. Less than three minutes in his company, and she'd opened up a Pandora's box of sin, desire, and heaven only k new what else would fly out in her face before she could slam the lid shut.
    She wasn't thinking of how to please her morally minded sovereign. She was remembering the pleasure she had shared with the most shameless man in Scotland.
    "What is the matter with you, Anne?"
    His voice again. She tried to focus on his face—no, that wasn't a good idea. She was embarrassed, flustered, remembering what they had shared, and despite what she pretended, she could not find it in her heart to blame him entirely for their bittersweet encounter. Still, the sight of him reminded her of a time when she had been so confused and unhappy.
    "What do you think is the matter with me?"
    "I don't know." There was genuine concern in his tone. "You look deathly pale—you aren't going faint on me, are you?"
    "Not if the floor is available." She released a sigh. "Why has she summoned us all the way here? It can't be for any good purpose."
    "Why not?" he asked, starting to feel dizzy from watching her walk back and forth in front of the door.
    "Because you're involved, that's why."
    "I wish you'd stop giving me so many compliments," he said wryly. "I might get the impression you harbor a certain tenderness for me."
    "Where on earth would you get an idea like that?"
    He leaned up against the mantelpiece, arms folded across the hard plane of his chest. He was a well-built man, lean and powerful. That much hadn't changed, and for a moment she was so awed by his physical presence, of how incongruous he looked in a royal antechamber, that she almost missed his next outrageous remark.
    "I will not be dishonest with you, Anne . I find you more attractive tha n I did seven years ago."
    The words barely sank in before she could feel herself start to shake again. "Are you—" she gave an incredulous hoot of laughter, "—you're actually trying to lure me back into your bed with the Queen about to be announced at any instant?"
    He gave her an indulgent look. "Actually, I had something more involved in mind than a few feverish moments."
    "Indeed." She froze, her hands tightening into fists at her sides. "Oh, that is so amusing, but at least it answers one question."
    "What question is that, my wee witch?" he asked quietly, his blue eyes brooding.
    She gritted her teeth, refusing to respond to the nickname he had whispered in her ear when they had made love. Witchcraft, aye, that's what it had been.
    Sometimes when she looked back on her mistake with Patrick, she thought she must have been under a spell. There was no other explanation for her behavior and wil lful disobedience that entire su mmer. Her parents had pulled their hair in frustration at her strange moods and wild rides across the moor before marrying her off in exasperation. Her aunt had prayed aloud for her salvation. Everyone said she was possessed, doomed, and on the path to hell when in reality she had been only an unhappy girl with a mind of her own. In the Highlands, some people would say Patrick had cast a glamour over her, a bewitchment, and even now she could believe it. She hadn't met anyone like him since.
    But she had broken the spell, hadn't she? She had married a sweet, upstanding man and had settled into respectability. She had paid penance with wifely obedience and the suppression of her true self. The glamour couldn't last forever, could it? It was just that he had caught her off guard again. She was shaking from head to toe because he had surprised her, appearing unexpectedly at Windsor Castle. She had always managed to maintain a semblance of control at their other accidental meetings.
    But then David had always been at her side, the dependable husband, a charm against evil, an unknowing talisman against temptation.
    Temptation.
    She cl osed her eyes. If Patrick so much as breathed on her, if she even look ed too