The Rogue: A Highland Guard Novella (The Highland Guard) Read Free Page B

hope that their tutor would try to procure a copy, but alas…” She shrugged.
    “Sparta?” he finished with a smile that twinkled in his eyes.
    She was momentarily transfixed, but then quickly managed to return his smile. But good gracious, when he smiled that way, he was so handsome, it was almost ridiculous. “Aye, I’m afraid my attempts to make rock and foundations sound as interesting to my thirteen and fourteen-year-old brothers as swords, shield walls, and ancient warriors failed miserably.”
    “I can’t imagine why.”
    Izzie grinned. “Sarcasm, my lord? Have care or you will win my heart along with my cousin’s, and doom me to an eternity of heartbreak.”
    He shook his head and held her gaze. “Somehow I don’t think there is any danger of that.”
    A few minutes ago, she would have agreed. But she had to admit Randolph had surprised her. He was still strung too tightly and took himself far too seriously for her taste, but he did appear to have some sense of humor and a couple redeeming qualities beyond his good looks and charm.
    She studied the handsome face looking down on her—he was at least two or three inches over six feet—with the same intensity that she’d looked at the stone earlier, trying to penetrate their secrets. To the same effect. They both revealed little.
    “Perhaps you would be interested in looking at a few drawings I have of some improvements I’d like to make to my castles?”
    “I would love to,” Izzie said before he’d even finished.
    Realizing she’d perhaps sounded a little overeager, she was trying to think of a light reply when a loud rumble shattered the peaceful quiet hum of nature around them.
    She started to look around. “What was that? It sounded—”
    “Watch out!” He pushed her back against the wall of rock she’d just been admiring, pinning her body to it with his own.
    The shock of sensation riveted her from head to toe. She’d never been in such intimate contact with a man before and everything about it seemed to strike her at once. He was warm, solid, and very muscular. Were it not for the heat and the way her body seemed to be melting into his, she might have thought she was being pressed between two stone walls.
    He was wearing a mail shirt but it was the solid strength of the chest underneath that she was feeling. Every ridge, every bulge, every slab, every rock-hard inch—of which there seemed to be quite a lot. Not that she was complaining. He felt good. Really good. Flushed cheeks and weakened knees good.
    Sensing her shock—and she hoped misinterpreting it—he tried to explain what was happening before her head cleared enough to ask.
    “Slide…,” he started to say, but the rest of his words were drowned out by the crash of rock that rained down behind them like a deadly waterfall.
    Good God! Had he not reacted as quickly as he had, she would have been crushed beneath all that. He’d saved her life—he really was a hero. The bones in her legs felt as if they’d turned to jelly. She would have slid to the ground had he not been holding her up.
    Yet, through it all, he held himself like an iron cage over her. He wouldn’t let anything touch her. She was perfectly safe.
    She knew that. It was the only reason to explain why she didn’t panic. Why she stood there calmly, concentrating on the hard warmth of his body, the steady beat of his heart, and the faint scent of rare cinnamon, while the ground reverberated and her teeth rattled with the force of the rockslide.
    It lasted only a few seconds, though it felt much longer.
    But when the din had faded and the dust had settled, he was still pressed against her.
    The beat of his heart had been steady, but oddly she felt it pound harder now.
    He turned his head enough to meet her gaze. Instinctively she sucked in her breath. There was something in his eyes she’d never seen before, but which she instinctively recognized. Desire . It washed over her—flooded her—with heat and