Julia London - Sinful Scottish Laird

He was wearing the plaid about him, and his legs, Lord in heaven, his legs shaped by sinewy muscle, were covered in a sort of red-and-white plaid pair of stockings, tied just below his knee with garters. He was tall, but not overly so, and lean, but burly, too. He was clean shaven, yet his hair appeared untamed, even tied at his nape as it was. He was so calm, so unruffled—he projected palpable power.

Had she been any other place, Daisy might have fanned herself. As it was, she was on the verge of swooning. She was astonished by her physical response to this man who, for all she knew, was a murderer, a smuggler, a thief—but damn her, in that frenzied moment of lust and fear, she could not think of a single other time she had been so completely enthralled by one man.

Now that he’d removed his gloves and tucked them into the plaid somewhere, he moved with great ease toward Mr. Bellows as Sir Nevis circled around, his sword raised, prepared to attack.

“Mi Diah, look around you, aye?” the Scotsman said. “Does a lady and gentlemen in leather boots rob coaches? Here? Where scarcely anyone resides?” He swept a thick arm to indicate the vast, untouched land around them. “We are no’ Jacobites, nor highwayman. But if we were, we’d shadow the road to Inverness. No’ this seldom used road.”

That seemed like a perfectly reasonable explanation to Daisy. Wasn’t it? She wanted to believe him, but her nerves, always so pragmatic, warned her that this entire situation might be planned. Perhaps the Gordons led them here so that these men could rob them. Now her heart began to pound with the possibility of danger, her palms dampening, her breath shortening. And yet she didn’t hide—she slipped around the coach while Mr. Bellows nervously kept his gun sighted on the man.

“We are charged with the protection of Lady Chatwick and her son, and we will not hesitate to give our lives if necessary, sir! Do not come closer!” Mr. Bellows’s hand shook.

If these Scots were in cahoots with those rotten Gordons, her party would be outnumbered at any moment. She was struck cold with the image of dozens of them coming down from the hills to pillage them, just as Belinda had predicted.

“We mean only to help, aye?” the Scotsman said. His voice wasn’t as heavily accented as the Gordons. In fact, his speech sounded as it was tinged with a bit of an English accent.

He lifted his hands shoulder high to show he was unarmed. “We’ve no desire to harm you; I give you my word as a Highlander and a gentleman.” He didn’t tremble, didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned. He seemed only impatient, as if he wished this meeting to be done.

“You expect us to believe it?” Mr. Bellows snapped.

“There is no’ a man among us who is inclined to haul so many boxes and trunks down the road.”

One of the riders behind the Scotsman spoke in the Scots language, and when he did, Mr. Bellows made the mistake of looking at him. In the space of no more than a moment, the Scotsman lunged so quickly for the barrel of the musket that Daisy couldn’t help but sound a yelp of alarm. He yanked it cleanly from Mr. Bellows’s hands and twirled it around in one movement to train it on him. “You’ll tell your companions to put away their firearms now, aye?” he asked, his voice deadly in its calm.

Daisy believed she would be bargaining for her son’s safety at any moment and frantically thought what to do. Should she find him and run for the lake? She glanced toward the chaise where Ellis was hiding, and saw Mr. Green furtively begin to lift his musket and take aim. Mr. Green, her groundskeeper, who’d likely never before fired on another man. “No!” she cried out inadvertently, the desperate sound of her voice startling her. “All of you! Do as he says, sir, please.”

The Scotsman did not take his eyes from Sir Nevis. “Heed your lady.”

“I urge you, madam, put yourself in the coach!” Sir Nevis shouted.

“If these men intended to rob us, would they not have already done it?” she asked, tripping over the traces of the chaise as she picked her way around the coach, desperate to avert a crisis. “Would not our hired men have interceded? I think he speaks true.”

“Ah, a voice of reason, then,” the Scotsman drawled.

There was no reason in Daisy at all—she had no idea what these men intended and spoke only with the frantic hope of avoiding bloodshed. “Please, Sir Nevis, tell your men to lower their sights,” she begged. “We want no trouble here.”

Sir Nevis jutted out his chin, but he turned slightly and nodded at the other men, and slowly, suspiciously, they lowered their guns.

The Scotsman smirked, then twirled the musket in one hand so that the butt was facing away from him and handed it to Mr. Bellows. “Now...might we help you repair the wheel?” he asked as if the tension had not just simmered so menacingly between them. As if none of them had, only moments before, feared for their lives.

“That is not necessary,” Sir Nevis said stiffly.

The Scotsman shrugged indifferently. “Aye, then. We’ve no desire to toil under the hot summer sun.” He turned as if he meant to depart, but he caught sight of Daisy and he hesitated, his eyes locking on hers.

Daisy’s breath quickened; her first instinct was to step back, to run. Her second instinct overruled the first, however, for he had a pair of astoundingly blue eyes. Cerulean blue. She was moving without thought, stepping away from the coach as she nervously pressed her damp palms to the front of her gown.

His heated gaze slowly traveled the length of her, his eyes like a pair of torches, singeing her skin as he took in every bit of her gown and the tips of the shoes that peeked out from beneath her hem. Then up again, to her bosom, where he unabashedly lingered, and finally to her face.

Daisy self-consciously brushed her cheek with the back of her hand, wondering if she looked dirty or worn.

He continued to stare at her so boldly and unapologetically that Daisy couldn’t help but smile uneasily. “Ah...th-thank you for your offer,” she stammered. What the devil was she to say in this situation?

He stared at her.

“Madam, I must insist that you return to the chaise with your lady to wait,” Sir Nevis begged her.

“Yes, I will,” she assured him, but she made no move to do so, not even when she heard Belinda call for her. She simply could not look away from the Scotsman.

“Who are you?” he suddenly demanded.

“Me?” she asked stupidly, but then she remembered herself and stepped forward, her hand extended, and sank into a curtsy with the vague idea that if all else failed, perhaps civility might work. “I beg your pardon. I am Lady Chatwick.” She glanced up, her hand still extended. The Scotsman scowled down at her. He showed no inclination to take her hand.

Daisy self-consciously rose. She’d never seen eyes so blue, she was certain of it—the very color of an early spring day. “I do so appreciate your offer of assistance. We’ve come a very long way and have not seen roads as bad as these.”

His gaze narrowed menacingly, and he took a step toward her. And another. He tilted his head to one side, studying her, as if she were a creature he’d never seen before. “What is an English noblewoman doing in these hills?” he demanded, his voice tinged with suspicion.

“We are to Auchenard,” she said. “It is a lodge—”

“Aye, I know what it is,” he said. “No one goes to Auchenard now but rutting stags. What business have you there?”

She was slightly taken aback by his crass comment. “Ah...well, Auchenard belongs to my son now. I thought he should see it.”

He frowned as if he didn’t believe her. His gaze fell to her lips, and there it lingered.