By Grace Possessed Read Online Free PDF Page B

silent would not last beyond the first idle thought to cross her mind. She would sit up again, give him one of her penetrating stares and begin talking of nothing. It was a rare woman, in his experience, who could or would hold her tongue. Curiosity and the dislike for having no one to share their thoughts would not allow it.
    He was wrong.
    An hour passed, the snow sifted relentlessly down, wind clattered the icy tree branches together, and still she said nothing. She was a stubborn wench. Or rather a stubborn lady—he could not call a female who wore a gold ring and velvet habit under an ermine-lined cloak by a less exalted title.
    She was also as hardy and uncomplaining as any cottager’s drab. Who had taught her to retreat into herself, to accept what came and endure it? She had been through enough in one evening to throw most gently bred ladiesinto strong hysterics, yet she was able to overcome it, to smile and take interest in someone else.
    Not that he had noticed her smiles all that much, of course.
    He had barely been aware of the glow of firelight on her pale skin, or the way it turned the tresses spread over her cloak into spun gold. Nay, hardly at all. It had only come to him half a dozen times that he was the only man other than her future husband who would ever see the shining length of it in such casual disarray, without the cover of a veil. Yes, and somewhere deep inside he was loath to think even her husband should have that right. How dim-witted could he be?
    She was an Englishwoman. She wanted no part of him and he none of her, and he’d best not forget it.
    Except that was a bald-faced lie. He’d take all of her he could get but for the small matter of binding himself to her as a husband. She was fair to look on and lovely to touch, and she stirred his blood as no female had since he was three and ten, and saw his first naked woman, his sister’s nursemaid, in her bath. He fair ached to see Lady Catherine in the same state of nature, clothed in nothing except the shining cape of her hair.
    Not that it meant twopence. The need for coupling was like any other appetite for him, satisfied when the means was at hand, controlled when it was not.
    The old laird, his esteemed father, was rabid in his dislike of the Sassenach; only his hatred of those who went by the name of Trilborn went deeper. He’d go off in an apoplexy if his firstborn son dared bring an Englishwoman home to Scotland. That was if he did not disown him for even thinking of such a betrayal.
    Not that he was, Ross assured himself, as he traced with his gaze the sweet curves of Lady Catherine’s backside for the thousandth time. His thoughts were wandering only because there was nothing to occupy them, nothing to be seen in this interminable night except clouds of snow, the gray ghosts of trees and the orange heart of the fire in front of him. He was half-blind with watching them, half-frozen from the back of his neck to his rump, half-roasted on his front from sitting so still. Yet he dared not shift his position except to shove another section of log into the flames, throw another broken branch into their maw. Once erect and moving, there was no telling what he might do.
    A quiet clicking sound came to him. He glanced around quickly before pinpointing the noise inside the shelter, which he’d positioned so its opening took advantage of whatever warmth there might be from the fire. Lady Catherine’s teeth were chattering where she lay huddled on the hard ground. She was no more asleep than he was, and her position put her farther from the fire.
    He could ease inside with her, slip under her cloak while throwing his plaid over both of them for extra warmth. He could pull her close and turn her so her fine, firm bottom pressed against the hard rod of him, and his arm clasped her waist. He could bury his face in her hair, pressing his lips to the tender curve of her neck at the vulnerable nape as he had first wanted when he saw her trembling