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

in half and laid the two pieces on the plate they were apparently going to share.  She hadn’t realized that when he said ‘break bread’ he literally meant it.  The crust was thick and crumbly, Scarlett doubted that there would be any way to bite through it without breaking a tooth but the inside was grainy and fragrant.

Oh, so inviting.

Bread.  Even if there had been utensils provided to start digging into the other dishes on the table, Scarlett didn’t think she could have denied its yeasty call.  It beckoned to her.  Tentatively, she dug out a piece of the soft inner loaf with her fingers.

“Is there something amiss, lass?” Rhys asked, his curiosity roused by her hesitance as she did little more than stare at the morsel.  “I’ll admit it doesnae look like much but it is tasty and filling, I promise ye.”

“Oh, it’s not that.”

Down the table, James, too, watched as Scarlett lifted a hunk of the bread to her nose, inhaling deeply.  Eyes closed, her face softened and her lips parted sensually as if she were as aroused by the scent as he was by the sight of her.

What roused her so?  James glanced down at the chunk of bread in his hand, resisting the urge to sniff it as she did.  It was naught but grain as always.

“What is it?” Rhys asked, voicing the question he was fighting himself not to.

“Carbs.”

“What?” Rhys asked, seemingly unaffected by her worshipful tone.

To James on the other hand, the near lust in that word conveyed itself straight down to his groin.

“I haven’t eaten carbs in years,” she sighed.  Against his will, he hardened even more when she closed her eyes and licked her lips in anticipation. “I mean, it’s a little overly textured but it’s carbs.”

“Tis no’ carbs, lass,” Rhys said perplexedly.  “Tis just bread.”

“Exactly.”

She opened her eyes to look reverently upon the morsel she held once more time before sliding it between her lips.  Her fine amber eyes burned with the same fire he had seen within them last night.  James was like to bound across that table and ravish her if she dared look at the bread like that again.

Her eyes fluttered closed again as she slowly chewed.  “Mmm.”

That purr of appreciation, much as he had heard when but half-awake the previous morning, incited James even more and he bit back a responding groan.  By God, but she roused him as he had never thought possible.  Hardly a word, nary a touch and he was throbbing with desire.

It wasn’t like him to be so easily provoked.  He felt like a beast.

A shuffling around the table told him he wasn’t the only one enraptured by her performance.  James pinned the spectators one by one with a fierce scowl and a steely gaze until they looked away. Another tiny morsel made its way to her luscious lips in much the same manner and he lifted his tankard to his lips, determined to squelch the desire flaming inside him.

Bluidy vixen.

Over the rim, James found Rhys watching him.  His brother’s gaze was lit by knowing humor.  Slamming the tankard down on the table, James fell into his own meal determined to ignore them all.

14

 

The few men who had gathered at the table had long since finished their meal and departed but still James found himself lingering over his ale and sausage, while Scarlett continued to pick her way through that single heel of bread savoring each bite as if it were her last.  ‘Twas no wonder she remained so gaunt.

He told himself he stayed to assure himself that she consumed a proper meal but James knew it was only to eavesdrop on the conversation at the head table.  He’d asked many of the same questions the day before as Rhys put to her now, yet the lass had nary a kind word to say to him.  He thought it only because she was his captive but she enjoyed Rhys’ company well enough, answering his inquires effusively.  He’d learned more about in an hour of eavesdropping than he had in a day’s worth of close proximity.

Weren’t they both her captors?

But nay, Rhys was the bluidy nice one, he recalled sourly.

“I maun ask aboot something that has been bothering me,” Rhys was saying.  “How did ye learn to fight as ye did?  I ken ye took Laird utterly by surprise but still ye subdued him, a man twice yer size.”

“A girl has to be able to protect herself,” Scarlett shrugged, popping another piece of bread into her mouth.

“Will ye show me how ye did it?”

“So that you’d be able to counter my moves?  No.”  Her husky chuckle spread like flames across James’ skin.

“Ye hae nothing to fear from us, my lady.”

Scarlett glanced down the table at James, her whiskey gaze speculative, but even that somehow stirred him.  “That remains to be seen.”

“Well then, where did ye learn it?” Rhys persisted.

“Self-defense classes,” she told him, turning away from James’ penetrating stare.  “Surprisingly being a celebrity isn’t all fame and fortune.”

“Celebrity?  Ye’ve used this word before.  I cannae think it means to ye what it means to myself.  In what way do ye mean for I doubt ye were named by celebration?”

“Celebrity,” she repeated distractedly, clearly more enamored with her carbs than his brother’s conversation.  “You know, famous people?  Does that make sense?”

“And ye were born of this celebrity?”

“Yes, both my parents are actors.”

“Actors?”

James stiffened in surprise, barely biting back his shocked repetition of Rhys’ protest.  However, they both looked her up and down again as if searching for something they hadn’t seen before.  Rhys lifted his gaze to James’ acknowledging that he knew James had been listening all along.  He raised a questioning brow but James only shrugged.  “Ye mean thespians?  I had assumed ye a lady born.”

They both had.

“I told you that you mistook me for someone else.”  She hesitated uncertainly.

Rhys looked at James again for direction but he only shook his head, lacking for an immediate response.  “How did ye