Gentle Rogue Read Online Free PDF

no, what was she thinking? He was a big ape with interesting features, that was all. He was also an Englishman, too old for her, and one of the hated nobles besides, and probably rich, with the wherewithal to buy whatever he wanted and the temerity to do whatever he wanted. Rules would mean nothing to such a man. Hadn’t he abused her outrageously? The rogue, the wretch…
    “Georgie?”
    The whisper floated down to her, not very close. She didn’t bother to whisper as she called back, “Down here, Mac!”
    A few moments passed while she heard Mac’s footsteps approaching, then saw his shadow at the top of the stairs. “Ye can come up now, lass. The street’s empty.”
    “I could hear it was empty,” Georgina grumbled as she climbed the stairs. “What took you so long? Did they detain you?”
    “Nae, I was waiting aside the tavern tae be sure they’d no’ be following ye. I was afeared the yellow-haired one was of a mind tae, but his brother waslaughing sae much at his expense, he thought better of it.”
    “As if he could have caught me, great lumbering ox that he was.” Georgina snorted.
    “Be glad ye didna have tae be putting it tae the testing,” Mac said as he led her off down the street. “And maybe next time ye’ll be listening tae me—”
    “So help me, Mac, if you say I told you so, I won’t speak to you for a week.”
    “Well, now, I’m thinking that might just be a blessing.”
    “All right, all right, I was wrong. I admit it. You won’t catch me within fifty feet of another tavern other than the one we’re forced to lodge in, and there I will only use the back stairs as we agreed. Am I forgiven for almost getting you pulverized?”
    “Ye dinna have tae apologize fer what wasna yer fault, lass. It was me those two lairds were mistaking fer someone else, and that had nothing tae do wi’ ye.”
    ‘But they were looking for a Cameron. What if it’s Malcolm?”
    “Nae, how could it be? They thought I was Cameron from the look of me. Now I ask ye, do I look at all like the lad?”
    Georgina grinned, relieved at least on that score. Malcolm had been a skinny eighteen-year-old when she’d been so thrilled to accept his marriage proposal. Of course he was a man now, had likely filled out some, might even be a little taller. But his coloring would be the same, with black hair and blue eyes very similar to that arrogant Englishman’s, and he was still more than twenty years younger than Mac, too.

    “Well, whoever their Cameron is, I have nothing but sympathy for the poor man,” Georgina remarked.
    Mac chuckled. “Frightened ye, did he?”
    “He? I recall there were two of them.”
    “Aye, but I noticed ye only had the one tae deal wi’.”
    She wasn’t going to argue about it. “What was it about him that was so…different, Mac? I mean, they were both the same, and yet not the same. Brothers apparently, though you couldn’t prove it by looking at them. And yet there was something else that was different about the one called James…Oh, never mind. I’m not sure what I mean.”
    “I’m surprised ye sensed it, hinny.”
    “What?”
    “That he was the more dangerous of the two. Ye had only tae look at him tae ken it, tae see the way he looked over that room when they first walked in, staring every mon there right in the eye. He’d have taken on that entire room of cutthroats and laughed while doing it. That one, fer all his fine elegance, felt right at home in that rough crowd.”
    “All that from the look of him?” She grinned.
    “Aye, well, call it instinct, lass, and experience of his kind. Ye felt it, too, sae dinna scoff…and be glad ye’re a fast runner.”
    “What’s that suppose to mean? Don’t you think he would have let us go?”
    “Me, aye, but yerself, I’m no’ sae sure. The mon held ye, lass, like he dinna want tae be losing ye.”
    Her ribs could attest to that, but Georgina merely clicked her tongue. “If he hadn’t held me, I’d have broken his