Scottish Brides Read Free Page B

grew suddenly tight. She shoved Andra against the chair back and burst into speech. “Me and the lasses have been doing spring cleanin’ these fast few days. ’Tis spring, ye ken, and a guid time to be cleanin’. So we aired the linens and dusted the mementos and rearranged everything in the trunks, and we put the kilt up there, too.” She nodded at one of the maids, who filled the bowls and placed one in front of Hadden and one in front of Andra. “Ye’ll want t’ have a full stomach fer yer adventure.”
    Andra touched her forehead. She didn’t remember a time when Sima had chattered so. It must be Hadden’s influence; another catastrophe she could put on his doorstep.
    â€œShe’s lost weight.” Hadden spoke to Sima, but there could be no doubt he spoke of Andra; his gaze battered her across the stifling intimacy of the shrinking table.
    â€œAye; with one eye closed, she looks like a needle,” Sima answered, showing her treasonous willingness to speak of Andra as if she weren’t even present. “She hasn’t been eating as she should.”
    â€œWhy do you suppose that is?” he wondered.
    â€œI’ve been busy,” Andra said.
    â€œShe’s been pining,” Sima answered at the same time.
    Fed up to the gills with Sima and her stupid notion that a woman needed a man to make her whole, Andra snapped, “Leave us to eat in peace.”
    â€œO’ course, mistress.”
    Sima curtsied, the maids curtsied, and they whisked themselves out so quickly Andra had the definite feeling she’d lost that round. But how could she win, she wondered morosely, when everyone in the castle clearly thought their mistress was daft?
    â€œEat your soup,” Hadden commanded, as much at home playing imperious master as he had been playing captivating guest.
    She wanted to answer that she wasn’t hungry, but for the first time in two months, she was. Ravenously, voraciously hungry, her body demanding sustenance after a famine. As she picked up her spoon, she skidded a glance at Hadden. Having him back had released one appetite—God help her if it released another.
    Wisely he kept his gaze on his own bowl and refrained from commenting on her avid consumption of the flavorful soup. Yet somehow he watched her, for he passed the scones whenever she finished one until she could eat no more. Then he put down his spoon.
    â€œYou’ll take me to the tower now.”
    She leaned back in her chair. “What makes you think you can command me in such a tone?”
    â€œThe food put new spirit in you,” he said. “Something you needed no more of. Yes, I do command you to take me to the tower. You owe me that, at least, Andra.”
    â€œI owe you nothing!”
    His hand came down over hers where it rested on the table, and when she tried to jerk back, he tightened his grip. “Yes, you do. Remember what you said to me when you sent me away? That I’d forget you as soon as you were out of my sight? Well, I haven’t. I think of you, I dream of you, I thirst for you—and if all I can get from you is a chapter in my treatise, then I will take that and live off of it until I die.”
    His palm was rough over the top of hers and blisteringly warm . . . just like the rest of him. She remembered his warmth, moving beneath her, thrusting above her, and the memory made her capitulate.
    She would do anything to make him let her go. As she rose, his hand again tightened on hers. Until she said, “Come, then. I’ll take you to the tower.”

Three
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    Hadden could scarcely contain his rage as he followed Andra up the dim and winding staircase to the tower. The woman had had him in turmoil for two bloody months, and now she had the nerve to walk ahead of him up the narrow, rickety steps, tormenting him with the sway of her hips. How much of this mindless teasing was a man expected to bear?
    If