Winning the Highlander's Heart Read Free Page B

audience with the king.”
    “I want to know about that woman.”  Malcolm nodded in the direction of the lady arguing vehemently with the marshal in charge of the stables.  Twice she wiggled her finger at the marshal to punctuate her statement.
    “She appears to be a handful.”  Dougald should know, as much as he got caught up with that kind of wench in the past, Malcolm thought.
    The woman turned and stormed toward the castle, but as soon as she caught sight of the MacNeill brothers watching her, she stopped as if she’d reached the edge of a cliff and stood in peril of falling to her death.
    Malcolm’s gaze dropped to her bodice, snuggly fitting her breasts, the newer form of gown meant to show off ladies’ curves rather than hide them.  A girdle of pale blue silk rope wound above her waist, crossed behind, then knotted in front with metal tassels hanging down from them.  The girdle accentuated all the right curves.  His attention switched to her hair hidden beneath white cloth.  Why, when all the other ladies of the queen’s staff showed off their lovely tresses, did this lady wear her hair veiled?
    “Either she is afraid of us,” Angus remarked, placing his hands on his hips, “or she is interested in us, as you have said.”
    She wrung her hands, her gaze focused on Malcolm’s, then she strode toward them.  Rather, toward the entrance to the keep.  Her cheeks were cherry, and a wisp of hair the color of spun gold, tinted red, fluttered loose from her wimple.  Though there were no freckles to bridge her nose, Malcolm thought she resembled a cousin on his mother’s side.  He curbed the notion that twisted his insides.  She wasn’t a relative, but she was Scottish.
    ‘Twas the end of any interest he had in the vixen.  He breathed deeply, trying to rein in his feelings for the woman.  He reminded himself any woman he’d touched so intimately would have had the same affect on him.  Even now, his shaft sprang to life when the image came to mind of spreading her silky thighs and burying himself deep inside her.  He’d not been with a woman in far too long.
    She tilted her chin higher and avoided looking at them when she stormed past.  He caught the look of her eyes as green as the sea and angry as if whipped into a frenzy on a stormy day.  Just like his cousin’s would be when he and his brothers riled her.  He twisted his mouth in annoyance.  The woman could intrigue him all she wanted, but he would have no part of her.
    He shook his head, wondering how he could have left his native land only to end up at the English castle, lusting after a Scottish lady.
    She disappeared inside the keep, and Dougald asked, “Is she Scottish?”
    Malcolm ground his teeth and nodded.  “Aye, that she is.”
    His little brother laughed.  “Here, Malcolm has convinced each of us to select an English bride and what are we losing our heads over?  A Scottish lass?”
    “Think you she is here,” Dougald asked, ever the man of reason, “looking for an English laird to be her husband?
    “Mayhap.”  Malcolm attempted to appear as though the thought didn’t disconcert him, but it did, though why the devil he should care he couldn’t fathom.  Finding a wife to wed was a matter of necessity.  ‘Twas time to put his title to use, granted to him for having saved King Henry’s brother’s life, Robert Curthose, during the Crusades.  ‘Twas time to have a castle, lands, his own people to command, and a bairn to leave his title to.  Too bad, he had to suffer a wife to make it happen.
    “If the lady is the king’s ward, he may be considering a suitable contract for her.”
    “Possibly she thought we were some of her kinsman, then finding we were not, she quickly dismissed that notion.”  Dougald rubbed his two-day growth of beard.
    “You have a good point.”  Malcolm motioned to the keep.  “Come, we shall see the king.”  Though he had to take care of more important business, his thoughts