Love in the Time of a Highland Laird (A Laird for All Time Book 3) by Angeline Fortin (whitelam books .TXT) 📗

From what he gathered from letters over the past few years, his father, the Earl of Cairn, had been outspoken in his support. They might think to arrest him… and by extension, come for Keir and his three brothers as well. Even if he hadn’t been in the country until only recently.

It was an aggravating situation, made all the worse by Hugh’s inexplicable disappearance. All he had to go on was this woman.

Whoever she was.

And she was an oddity. A mystery. From her stumbling speech to her dress, there was nothing about her that made any sense.

Keir hated mysteries. Whenever he came across one, he tore it down bit by bit until it was completely unraveled, comprehensible.

He would do the same with her. The delicate shudders shaking her tiny body told him she was on the verge of becoming undone. He merely needed to push a wee bit harder.

Fear was a strong motivator.

“Ye ken I could beat the truth from ye. Aye?” he said softly, pacing closer and drawing his dirk from his belt. He slid the flat edge of the blade down the side of her neck, pressing the tip lightly against her jugular. Not hard enough to break her delicate skin but hard enough to make his point. “I could torture ye for it.”

Another tremor racked her from head to toe but still she said nothing. Had he frightened her beyond words, he wondered? She was a bitty thing for all her bountiful curves. Meek. She might very well be cowed by his size.

Or was it something more?

*

God, she was a hot mess.

On the one hand, wallowing in utter misery for the hand fate had dealt her. The life she had worked so hard for lost. Her hopes and dreams gone. Her academic achievement all for nothing. Since that was where she had dwelt for most of her life, the loss was devastating.

On the other hand there was terror. She had no idea what this savage man was capable of. He could skin her inch by inch with that sharp blade for all she knew. Dissect her piece by piece and have her for dinner. No one would ever be the wiser.

No one was about who might even shed a tear for her demise.

On the third hand—if she were allowed one—she was absurdly tantalized by what was happening to her. Not the potential for death and dismemberment, naturally, but by the far flung fiction of being thrown somewhere in time and landing at the feet of a man like this.

For all his frowns and threats, her captor was dazzling. True, that cold blade across her throat brought visions of her blood being painfully spilt on the hard stone floor. Quivers of terror were winding up and down her limbs.

But… yes, but. But she was also shaken by the thought of his rough fingers following the same trail in a far more tormenting, sensual caress.

It was the stuff fantasies were made of, and being so much more pleasing than the reality of her situation, some part of her wanted to embrace it as such. That she couldn’t shake the thought left her on the verge of puddling at his feet.

Not in a mound of trembling lust, but in mortification.

Quaking, visibly no doubt, with that odd combination of fear, excitement, and humiliation, she flinched as his thick fingers encircled her neck once more. When the icy tip of the knife pricked at her throat, fear dizzied her and she might have collapsed into a heap on the floor if he weren’t holding her up.

His breath brushed hotly against her ear. “I will hae my answers, lass. By any means necessary, so ye best speak now ‘ere something unpleasant befalls ye.” The words were a raspy burr but the threat was unmistakable. He was quite serious.

But so was she. There was nothing she could say that would give him the satisfaction he desired. The where’s and the how’s would make no sense to a brute like this. Most likely she’d be tortured as a heretic for even suggesting such a thing. Though she wasn’t sure yet when she’d landed, it all had a very medieval, witch-hunty vibe to it that wouldn’t bode well for the truth.

Still, holding her tongue on the matter wasn’t going to be enough for him. He shook her hard by the shoulders once more. “Tell me what I bluidy well want tae hear,” he boomed, bending her back until he was looming over her.

Al was a petite woman. She’d spent a lifetime looking up at people. But until that instant, she’d never been completely overwhelmed by anyone. He was so massive, so muscular. He could snap her in half with those meaty hands without breaking a sweat.

He could do anything, anything at all to her that he damn well pleased. She’d be but a gnat to be swatted away for all a struggle would be worth to oppose him.

His eyes narrowed as if he could read the thoughts running through her mind. Pushing away, he took a step back and raked his fingers through his shaggy locks. Some, but not all, of the anger in his eyes faded. “Bugger it, lass. Relax. I’m nae rapist if that’s what ye’re thinking.”

Straightening, she shrugged, refusing to acknowledge the truth of her thoughts aloud. The marked violence of true rape hadn’t been at all what she’d been thinking. More like the impassioned struggle of an interrogation turned to a thirst for more than knowledge.

Geez, she really had read too many novels.

And a damned good thing he couldn’t truly read minds.

“Ye ken, I am nae a barbarian ye think me tae be.” He flung the word she had used back at her.

“Are you sure?” she asked, flinging her straggling hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head as if bravado could wash away the unseemliness of her thoughts. “Because it all looks pretty barbaric from here.”

At her impudent sarcasm, her