The Devil Wears Plaid Read Online Free PDF Page B

had possessed her to make such a preposterous boast. She had managed to survive her parents’ forced cheer and her sisters’ pretended envy over her nuptials to the earl, so why had a stranger’s opinion of her proved so galling to her pride?
    Somehow as she had stood there in the moonlight, being judged and found wanting beneath the cool appraisal of Jamie Sinclair’s eyes, it had seemed better for him to think her a grasping shrew than some sacrificial lamb marching meekly to her doom. Better to have him loathe her than to pity her. For a few precious seconds, she had felt strong and powerful and in command of her own fate.
    Now she just felt ridiculous.
    She might have been able to restrain her temper if he hadn’t kept calling her “lass” in that infuriating manner. Thanks to that whisky-and-velvet burr of his, the word had sounded more like an endearment than the overly familiar insult it was. It had made her desperate to put some distance between them, even if it was only by insisting he acknowledge her social superiority by calling her Miss Marlowe. He would probably laugh in her face if he knew her
genteel
father was one flask of brandy and one unlucky round at the faro table away from being cast into debtor’s gaol.
    I know you’re still young enough—and comely enough—to need a real mon in your bed
.
    As she struggled to pummel a fold of the blanket into some semblance of a pillow, it was his words and not her own that returned to haunt her. A fresh shiver raked her as she remembered how his knuckles had grazed her cheek with such disarming tenderness. His husky whisper had summoned up mysterious and provocative images of the things a
mon
might do to her in that bed. These images had little to do with the disagreeable duty her mother had described. Even now, they held the power to send a rush of heat sizzling through her veins, to burn the chill from her aching bones.
    She squeezed her eyes shut. Was Sinclair boldenough to imply she needed a man like
him
in her bed? A man who wouldn’t simply climb atop her and wiggle and grunt as her mother had told her the earl was likely to do? A man who would woo her with tender, breath-stealing kisses and skillful caresses until she was begging to surrender herself to him?
    Her eyes flew open. Being bounced around on the horse’s back must have scrambled her wits. It wasn’t as if a barbarian like Jamie Sinclair could ever be that man. From what she’d heard of the wild Highlanders who still roamed these hills, he was more likely to bend a woman over a table, toss her skirts up over her head and take his pleasure roughly and swiftly without a care for her own.
    Emma poked her head out of the blankets, hoping the icy air would cool the sudden fever raging in her cheeks. She was accustomed to hearing her sisters whisper and giggle in bed each night after their mother extinguished the lamp. It gave her an unsettling start to hear instead the low rumble of two men talking between themselves.
    “She’s a bonny eno’ lass, I s’pose,” one of them was saying. “Though a bit scrawny for my tastes.”
    “Judging by the girth o’ that barmaid in Invergarry, any lass under fifteen stone would be a bit scrawny for your tastes, Bon.” Emma stiffened as she recognized the unmistakable cadences of Sinclair’s murmur. Although she had her back to the fire, sheinstinctively closed her eyes so no one would guess she was eavesdropping instead of sleeping.
    Sinclair’s observation was met with a fond sigh from the man he’d called Bon. “Aye, me Rosie was a bit o’ a handful, wasn’t she? Two handfuls and a mouthful, if ye must know.”
    “I mustn’t, but I’m sure the image will haunt my dreams for nights to come,” Sinclair said dryly.
    “Don’t try to play the monk with me, lad. I’m sure ye’d like nothin’ more than to warm yerself between a certain pair o’ soft, white thighs on this cold spring night.”
    “You heard me in the abbey,” Sinclair