Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

She snorted when she laughed and this time James couldn’t withhold the rare smile that sprang to his lips at the sound.  For all her cantankerous words and nonsense, there was something improbably likeable about the chit and he wondered if he should be more wary of her given his uncharacteristic inclination to soften toward a foe.  They didn’t know who she was, who her people were.  The lass had told Rhys that she was from Memphis.  Not the ancient Egyptian city but the Memphis of Tennessee.  Neither of them had heard tell of such a place.

And too, she claimed to know the bloody Queen of England.  For all he knew, she could well be a spy or nothing more than his enemy’s kin.

At best she was nothing more than a sickly, frail lass lacking clothing or possession of her own, in need of protection.

His protection.

If from nothing greater than herself.

Shaking off the charitable urge, James lifted the skin of whiskey away and set it to the side.  “Lass…”

Bluidy hell, he didn’t even know her name.

His captive canted sideways once more, rolling her face into his shoulder as she chuckled drunkenly.  Snorting once more, her laughter drifting away with a long sigh punctuated by a hiccup.  “May the good Lord help me if the papa – hic – razzi could see me now.”

“I hae nae idea what that is.”

“I know, I know,” she muttered into his shirt, curling her fingers into the woolen plaid across his shoulder.  “You don’t even know what a camera is or a pic-ture or a movie or a …”

James looked down at her as she melted against him, uncertain what to do.  On and on the ramblings continued until they halted in a soft snore and he jostled her back to consciousness by setting her to rights once again.  “Come, lass, to bed wi’ ye.”

“But I don’t wanna go to bed,” she murmured though she allowed his assistance in rising, stumbling and swaying once so was upright.

“Och, lass, ye do.”

Swinging her into his arms as his men began to bed down for the night around the fire, James carried her a short distance away.  He set her on her feet at the perimeter of the fire’s glow, and throwing off his sword, began to unbuckle his belt.

“Hey, whoa there,” she slurred, weakly pressing her open hand against his chest.  “I hardly know you.”

“What?”

“I might be a little tipsy… okay, more than a little, but I’m not that drunk,” she said, her voice clearing with every word.  “We’re not going to sleep together.”

“For certs, we are.”  James dropped his belt and began to quickly unwind his kilt as the lass swayed on her feet.

A cold splash of water couldn’t have cleared Scarlett’s head more rapidly than the sight of Laird so casually undressing.  Holy crap, he was serious!  “No, we aren’t!”

“Aye, we are!”

Laird grabbed at her wrist as Scarlett tried to scramble away and pulled her back against his rock-hard body.  Horror clouded her mind as she struggled against him but Laird was stronger and probably far more lucid than she. Within seconds she was on the ground, pinned beneath him as he straddled her.  Her hands immobilized over her head by his vice-like grip.  Chest heaving with panic, Scarlett stared up at him.

Never had she imagined something like this would happen.  How could she have forgotten that the medieval times, for all their vaunted chivalry, was also a period of the rape/pillage mentality when it came to war?  She didn’t want to become anyone’s plunder!  Not even a guy like Laird.  “You won’t… get any ransom if I’m… I’m harmed.  In any way,” she warned brokenly as she twisted futilely beneath him.

Laird’s grip eased and his eyes widened as comprehension dawned.  Then he laughed at her.  “Ye think I’m going to ravish ye, lass?”

Confused, Scarlett stilled as she stared up at him.  “I… I… Well, not anymore.”

Stilling chuckling, Laird released her hands and lifted himself up on to his knees, still straddling her and intimidating, too, even if he wasn’t weighing down on her.  “Worry no’, lass.  Nae man wants a bag of bones in his bed on a cold night.  We like a woman with some meat on her.  Perhaps when ye’ve recovered from yer illness though, I might reconsider.”

Relief swept through her at his assurance followed by mortification as he winked at her.  Overriding it all was indignation.  The mighty Laird of Achenmeade might not be very likeable and it wasn’t as if Scarlett wasn’t glad for his apathy in this particular instance, but she wasn’t used to being thought undesirable either.  Since The Puppet War series had concluded and the geeky teen she had been blossomed into the swan the public adored, she had made a near career, between her college classes, of modeling for the covers of fashion magazines.  Elle, Vogue, Cosmo.  One photographer had said she was built for the runway. Victoria’s Secret had even asked her to model for their annual fashion show.

No one had ever called her a bag of bones before.  It was more than a little insulting.

“I’m not sick,” she ground out for the hundredth time that day.  Scarlett bent her knees, planting her feet.  Lifting her hips, she launched him – perhaps not over her head as she planned – but at least off to the side with a satisfying lurch.

Anger flashed in his eyes as he righted himself, then humor.  “Mayhap no’ any longer.”  He patted her hip as if that might console her.

Warily, Scarlett pushed herself to her knees as he stood and continued to pull off his kilt, which unbelted turned out to be nothing more than a long length of wool.  A quick glance back at the fire showed his men all doing the same thing, wrapping themselves in their woolen plaids.

Pulling her tote over her head, she set it aside on a patch