Beyond the Highland Mist Read Online Free PDF Page A

vividly colored tapestries depicting hunts and orgies, Adrienne fainted again—this time, with relish.

    Adrienne awoke again to a score of maids bearing undergarments, stockings, and a wedding dress.
    The women bathed her in scented water before a massive stone fireplace. While she huddled submerged in the deep wooden tub, Adrienne examined every inch of the room. How could a dream be so vivid, so rich with scent and touch and sound? The bathwater smelled of fresh heather and lilac. The maids chatted lightly as they bathed her. Thestone fireplace was easily as tall as three men—it rose up to kiss the ceiling and sprawled along half the width of the east wall. It was bedecked with an array of artistic silver-work; delicately filigreed baskets, cunningly handcrafted roses that gleamed like molten silver, yet each petal distinct and looking somehow velvety. Above the great mantel, rough-hewn of honey oak, hung a hunt scene depicting a bloody victory.
    Her study was cut short by the screech of the door. Shocked gasps and immediately hushed voices compelled her gaze over one bare shoulder, and she, too, gasped aloud. The villain with the matted rug upon his face! Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment and she sunk deeper into the tub.
    “Milord, ’tis no place for you—” a maid began.
    The slap ricocheted through the room, silencing the maid’s protest and halting anyone else’s before they even considered beginning. The great greasy beast from earlier in her nightmare sunk down on his haunches before the steaming tub, a leer on his face. Slitted blue eyes met steely gray as Adrienne held his rude stare levelly.
    His eyes dropped from hers, searched the water line and probed below it. He grinned at the sight of her rosy nipples before she crossed her arms and hugged herself tightly.
    “Methinks he doesn’t do so badly for himself,” the man murmured. Then, dragging his eyes from the water to her flushed face, he commanded, “From this moment forth, your name is Janet Comyn.”
    Adrienne shot him a haughty look. “My name,” she snapped, “is Adrienne de Simone.”
    Crack!
    She raised a hand to her cheek in disbelief. A maid cried out a muffled warning.
    “Try it again,” he counseled softly, and as soft as his words were, his blue eyes were dangerously hard.
    Adrienne rubbed her stinging cheek in silence.
    And his hand rose and fell again.
    “Milady! We implore you!” A petite maid dropped to her knees beside the tub, placing a hand upon Adrienne’s bare shoulder.
    “That’s right, give her counsel, Bess. You know what becomes of a lass foolish enough to deny me. Say it,” he repeated to Adrienne. “Tell me your name is Janet Comyn.”
    When his beefy hand rose and fell again, it came down on Bess’s face with fury. Adrienne screamed as he struck the maid repeatedly.
    “Stop!” she cried.
    “Say it!” he commanded as his hand rose and fell again. Bess sobbed as she crumpled to the floor, but the man went down after her, his hand now a fist.
    “My name is Janet Comyn!” Adrienne cried, half rising from the tub.
    The Comyn’s fist halted in midair, and he sank back on his haunches, the light of victory gleaming in his eyes. Victory—and that disgusting slow perusal of her flesh.
    Adrienne flushed under the sheer lechery of his pale eyes, and plunged her upper body back into the water.
    “Nay, he doesn’t get a bad bargain at all. You are much more comely than mine own Janet.” His mouth twisted into a smile. “Would that I had leisure to taste such plump pillows myself, but you came just in the nick of time.”
    “Came where?”
    “Came
from
where is my question,” he countered. Adrienne realized in that instant that to underestimate this brutish man would be a grave mistake. For behind the slovenly manners and the unkempt appearance was steelymettle and rapier sharp wit. The flabby arm that had felled the blows couched muscle. The pale slitted eyes that wandered restlessly didn’t miss a