Kate Wingo - Highland Mist 01 Read Online Free PDF Page A

Beauchamp was the daughter of his sworn enemy. For all that she possessed the face of a Madonna, her heart was undoubtedly as black as that of the cur who sired her.
    As Iain forcibly dragged Yvette out of the hovel, the lady indignantly squealed, protesting his roughshod treatment of her. When they passed his fellow Highlanders, the five men seated around a small campfire, all save for Diarmid began to heckle.
    “Och, Hamish, I’m thinking the laird has already shown the wench the difference between an English blade and a Scottish long sword.”
    Laughing, the burly red-bearded Hamish, shook his head and bellowed, “The wench is wearing a sneer no’ a smile. That means the laird has yet tae unsheathe his weapon.”
    Iain, paying no heed to their bawdy remarks, stormed toward a clump of overgrown hawthorn bushes on the far side of the razed village.
    “Get on with it,” he ordered bluntly once they were out of sight of the others.
    When her captor made no move to leave, Yvette, utterly aghast, said, “Surely, you do not intend to watch me?”
    ‘I dinna trust ye. Ye’re English,” the laird retorted; as if that was all the reason he needed to be suspicious of her. “Now raise yer skirts and get on with it. The rains will soon be upon us.”
    While several ominous clouds did lurk overhead, that was shallow inducement for Yvette t o suffer so gross an indignity.
    “I refuse to relieve myself while you stand over top of me!” she vehemently protested. “Even if I attempted to escape, where I would run to? As near I can tell, there are only the birds in the sky to save me from your cruel abduction.”
    “And because they’re loyal Scottish birdies, I doubt they’ll be coming to an Englishwoman’s rescue any time soon.”
    “ From that, am I to infer that in addition to being my ‘lord and master,’ you now command the birds in the sky?” Yvette mocked.
    “Silence, woman! I grow weary of yer shrewish tongue. Mayhap–” contemplatively tipping his head to one side, Iain openly stared at her mouth –“yer lovely lips would be made even lovelier if I were to stuff a gag between them.”
    “You wouldn’t dare!”
    “I am the MacKinnon. I do as I please.” As if to prove his point, he cinched a hand around her arm and began to drag Yvette back to the village.
    “For the love of God, I pray thee stop!” she exclaimed to Iain’s backside, digging her heels into the dirt. Not that her balking slowed him one whit. “You must allow me to attend to my personal needs. And you must permit me a modicum of privacy to do so.”
    Iain came to a halt. Turning to face her, he stubbornly shook his head and said, “I dinna trust ye to be left alone.”
    “But I have done nothing to earn your mistrust. If anything, I’ve been an exemplary prisoner.”
    “Ye’re Lyndhurst’s get. For that reason alone ye’ve earned my mistrust,” Iain retorted. “On account of my meddling cousin, I’m forced to give ye a wee measure of consideration. But that’s all ye’ll get from me.”
    “And clearly you resent making even that small concession,” she said scornfully, taking umbrage at the fact that her father’s sins had been unjustly heaped upon her.
    “Do I resent having to play ho st to a blackguard’s daughter? Aye, I do,” Iain said, answering his own question.
    Hah! Some host. If this was a sampling of Highland hospitality, they were an even more barbaric people than she originally supposed.
    “ And what did my father do to arouse so great an enmity?”
    Scowling, Iain said, “That’s none of yer bloody business.”
    “ There you are wrong,” she argued, wondering if the brute could be won over with reason. “Through no fault of my own, it has become my business in so far as I’m being unjustly punished for my father’s transgressions.”
    “ The punishment is no’ so unfair given that Lyndhurst’s tainted blood flows through yer veins.”
    Hearing that, Yvette dismally realized there would be no