Secrets to Seducing a Scot

FOURTEEN

Slaighteur.

It was a word that screamed at Malcolm every cursed day of his life. No matter where he went or how he tried to hide it, they always found out.

Damn his folly for not putting on his gloves before going into Serena’s room. Now there would be questions. Suspicions. Fears.

He sensed, rather than looked at, the scar that broadcast his secret. It was as obvious and palpable as a third arm. He stood before the small mirror that rested on the bare interior framing of the wall. Even when the gloves were on, the word seemed imprinted on his face.

Slaighteur.

Twenty years had passed since the awful day of his family’s massacre, and it still pained him as if it were yesterday. For years, he wondered what had become of the wee ones who’d been kidnapped. Even now, he subsisted on the tenuous hope that they were still alive, growing older and less familiar with each passing year. If they were alive, then like him they were forbidden to carry their real name. Like him, they were now only slaighteur—knaves.

Refusal to stand with the clan in battle was treasonous. A villainous act that was punishable by expulsion from the clan. Not just you, but your whole family. It was the Highland way. And just to make sure that any chieftain you swore loyalty to knew about your cowardice, the sign of slaighteur would tell the story that your shame refused to.

He dipped his hand in the basin and splashed the cold water onto his face, hoping in vain to wash away the memory of his little siblings cowering together in the corner, their little hands blistering from the awful branding. Their innocent eyes watching the slaughter of their entire family. Wrenched from their homes. God alone knew what further torments had lain ahead for them. He choked on the horror.

The pang of regret in his gut stabbed at him. He would never forgive himself for surviving, for escaping. Or for failing to protect them.

His thoughts turned to the woman on the other side of the plaster wall, and he shook his head.

There was a woman who warranted his protection. He knew the dangers she was up against, even if she didn’t recognize them. That note wasn’t just a warning, it was a prediction. Malcolm was aware of how serious these rebels were. He’d already been sent to catch three such rebels, including Jock McInnes. These men were beyond the point of talking about their grievances … they were after instilling terror, and they didn’t care how many innocents died in the process.

Serena Marsh. He had to admire her courage. Even after the threat of mutilation and death, she refused to back down or be driven into hiding. It may have been foolhardy, but it was bold. Worthy of a Highland woman.

God, what an iron-willed lass. He had to smile. All that pluck in the heart of one so fair. She always fought him like a cat on its back, four sets of sharp claws ready to do damage. For the hundredth time, he imagined what it would be like to have all that hiss and spit in his bed. To have each of those milky limbs wrapped around his body. Every time she shouted some imperious command at him, he felt like silencing her sensual mouth with a forceful kiss. Every time she behaved dismissively, he felt the urge to make her moan for him all the more.

And he was just the man to do it. Just the man to turn her hisses into kisses, her scratching to caressing. Because he understood her. He knew that underneath all that bravado, there was someone desperately in need of protecting. He could read it in her eyes. She had been hurt, and she would let no man get within ten feet of her heart. Treating men like a spoiled child treats its playthings … enjoying them for a time and then leaving them lying around just as soon as she tires of them. It was safe for Serena to keep her distance, because if the toy came to life and left her, she would be devastated. Again.

Malcolm shrugged off his shirt and lay on top of the narrow cot in the passageway. He was involving himself too deeply in this assignment. It was not his job to fix Serena Marsh. It was his job to protect her. In fact, it suited him well that she would not let men get close. It made his job easier. She had little enough regard for the peril in which she stood. The less attention she drew, the better.

He draped his forearm over his eyes to concentrate on the security measures for tomorrow’s outing. Point by point he went over the best strategy to get her safely to Invergarry, to protect her while out in the open, and to see her safely home. And as he finally began to drift off, one thought kept resurfacing.

Was he trying so hard to keep her from the enemy, or just to keep her for himself?