Page 8 of Wild Wicked Scot
“Well,” she said airily, “I can’t say I’ve beencompletelychaste. But who among us has?” She turned her head and looked him directly in the eye, a cool smile on her lips, the color in her cheeks high.
What game was this now? She would flirt with him, hint at bad behavior? It made no sense, and it stank of trickery. Whowasthis woman? The woman who had left him would have been appalled by the mere suggestion that her chastity was not practically virginal. But this woman was toying with him, making suggestions and smiling in a way that could make a man’s knees give way.
He turned away from that smile to signal the serving boy to pour wine and noticed that half of his men were still gaping at her. “All right, all right,” he said irritably, gesturing for them to do something other than stare. “Can you no’ play something a bit livelier, Geordie?” he demanded of his musician.
Geordie put down his flute, picked up his fiddle and began to play again.
As Margot lifted the cup to her lips, he said, “Now that you’ve had your grand entrance, I’ll know what has brought you to Balhaire. Has someone died, then? Has your da lost his fortune? Are you hiding from the queen?”
She laughed. “My family is in good health, thank you. Our fortune is quite intact, and the queen is generally not aware of me at all.”
He sprawled back in his chair, studying her.
She smiled pertly. “You seem skeptical. I had forgotten what a suspicious nature you have, but I did always quite like that about you, I must say.”
“Should I not be suspicious of you? When you appear as you have without a bloody word?”
“Can you tell me a better way to return to you?” she asked. “If I’d sent word, you would have denied me. Is that not so? I thought that perhaps if yousawme before you heard my name...” She shrugged.
“You thought what?”
“I thought that maybe you would realize you’d missed me, too.” She smiled softly. Hopefully.
There it was, that stir of blood in him again, accompanied by another rash of images of his wife’s long legs on either side of him, her silky hair pooling on his chest. He swallowed that image down. The truth was that he couldn’t bear the sight of her. “I donna miss you, Margot. I loathe you.”
Her cheeks turned crimson, and she glanced down at her lap.
“Aye, and how long has it been, precisely, since you began to miss me, then,leannan? Did I no’ send enough money?”
“You’ve been entirely too generous, my lord.”
“Aye, that I have,” he said with an adamant nod.
“As to when I began to miss you so ardently?” She pretended to ponder that as she fidgeted with the necklace at her throat. “I can’t say precisely when. But it’s a notion that’s taken root and continues to grow.”
“Like a bloody cancer,” he scoffed.
“Something like that. I always thought you’d come to assure yourself of my welfare instead of sending Dermid as you did.”
“You thought I’d come all the way to England, chasing after you like a fox after a hen?”
“Chaseis a strong word. I rather prefervisit.”
“I didna receive an invitation tovisit, aye?”
“You never needed an invitation! You’re my husband! You might have come to me whenever you liked. Didn’t you always before?” she asked with a salacious look. “Didn’t you miss me, Arran? Perhaps only a little?”
“I’ve missed you in my bed,” he said, holding her gaze. “It’s been a damn long time.”
Color crept into Margot’s cheeks again, but she steadily held his gaze. “Has it really been so long?”
His gaze drifted to her mouth. An eternity. He sat up, leaning in. “A verra long time, lass. It’s been three years, three months and a handful of days.”
Margot’s smile faded. Her lips parted slightly and her lashes fluttered as she looked at him with surprise.
“Aye,leannan, I know how long I’ve been free of the burden of you. Does that surpriseyou?”
Something in her eyes dimmed. “A little,” she admitted softly.
