Page 3 of Never Kiss a Scot
Lennox? He had to mean her brother, but why was he restraining her?
“Call for—” She was silenced as he slid her hair ribbon between her parted lips and tied it around her head, gagging her. With gentle hands, he guided her to the chair by the fire and pushed her into it. She fell back with a muffled cry, not one of pain but indignation. Howdarehe truss her up and—
“Move from here in the next few minutes and I fear you will regret it,” Brock warned.
She tried to curse him, but the gag muffled the noise. He gazed down at her a moment longer, a sharp flash of regret in those gray eyes that made her still. He didn’t want to leave her tied up. This wasn’t part of some game of seduction, so why had he? More importantly, what was the thing he was about to do that he clearly did not want her to see? A cold wave of dread swept through her, but she dared not move, not until she saw him vanish through the library door and into the corridor outside.
Joanna waited only a moment before she leapt up from the chair and rushed to the door. She pulled at the handle and stumbled into the hallway, tripping over a wrinkle in the carpet and twisting her ankle. She yelped as she took a step on the injured ankle.
At the sound of footsteps, she glanced up, expecting to see Brock, but instead it was Charles Humphrey, or as London knew him, the Earl of Lonsdale. Charles was a member of the League of Rogues and one of her brother’s closest friends.
He jerked to a halt when he saw her hands were bound and her mouth gagged. “Joanna? What the devil?” He tugged the ribbon free from her lips and unbound her wrists. “What happened?”
“There’s a man here…one of Rosalind’s brothers…” She tried to explain, but she honestly had no idea what was really going on.
“You mean a Scotsman is in this house?” Charles snapped.
“Yes, he said he was invited to the wedding, but then he tied me up and—”
“He’s not invited. The bloody bastard shouldn’t even be here. We must tell Ashton at once.”
“What? Why?”
“Because Rosalind’s brothers are damned dangerous. They’ve come to take Rosalind back to her father in Scotland. He’s a rotten excuse for a human being.” Charles looked her over. “The man didn’t touch you, did he? I mean, aside from binding you?”
Joanna swallowed hard and shook her head. She wasn’t about to admit that she’d been passionately kissing a dangerous Scotsman.
“Thank God. Your brother would never let one of those brutes hurt you,” Charles muttered as he helped her down the hallway. She clutched the silk sash that had been around her wrists as they strode down the hall, calling for her brother.
“What sort of a man is her father?”
“The sort who beats his own defenseless daughter.”
“Did her brothers hurt Rosalind? Or was it just her father?”
“Just her father, as far as I understand. But I’ve tussled with them once before. One of the bastards broke a chair over my back.”
“My God! What was that all about?”
Charles hesitated in answering, but not for long. “As you might expect with me. A woman. Take my word on this—you don’t ever want to be alone with any of them. They’d seduce you before you had a chance to think.”
Joanna swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. Brock was dangerous? She shouldn’t have been surprised. Any man who could kiss like that had to be. It was just her luck that she found a man who made her feel alive, and he was someone she should never marry.
2
Bath, one month later
“She’ll never marry, not that one, unless she sets her sights low, and maybe not even then.” A society mamatskeda little too loudly as Joanna passed by her in the assembly room.
“Quite right,” another woman whispered back. “No one ever asks her to dance. Must be something wrong with her.” The words cut deep because Joanna knew the woman was talking about her, and she knew the woman was right.
There was only one man in England who seemed to be interested in her at all—a rather boring but decently attractive man named Edmund Lindsey. He was only a gentleman, no title but plenty of fortune. Still, Joanna was hesitant to consider him. She felt no passion for him, no great fire in her belly or flutter in her chest. She didn’t want to marry Edmund simply because he was heronlychoice, but what else could she do?
The one man she had wanted to marry had given her a wonderful, perfect kiss and then vanished into the night like the rogue he was. It was the sort of thing that ruined a woman for all other men because no man would ever compare to Brock Kincade. And she’d been a fool to think he might come back for her after the disagreement between Brock and her brother had been settled but he hadn’t.
Because there’s something wrong with you…The thought slithered from her brain deep into her heart.
She tried to move through the crush of people near the dance floor, not that it mattered. Her card had the next three dances empty, and what few dances she did have on her card were with married men who were older and business acquaintances of her brother’s. She shouldn’t have come tonight, but Ashton and his fiancée, Rosalind, had wanted to spend some time enjoying Bath before the wedding.
