To Love a Highlander Read Online Free PDF Page A

rose.
    Mirabelle had quite forgotten about her until now.
    But she did believe in bogles.
    Her own home, Knocking Tower, abounded with spirits. She’d even encountered a few. Not a one of them had disquieted her as much as the man now standing before her, his arms still folded and the most annoying look on his darkly rugged face.
    He was entirely too virile.
    He also had proved a much greater threat than any ghost.
    “The pink lady walks the courtyard, last I heard.” Sorley spoke with the masculine triumph of a man sure he knew better than the gullible female before him. His tone left no doubt that he didn’t believe in the bogle. “You would not have met her in my privy chambers.
    “Come, I’ll show you where folk claim she prowls.” He wrapped his hand around her wrist and led her across the room to one of the tall, arch-topped windows. “Look down into the bailey. Tell me if you see her.”
    “I won’t. See her, I mean.” Mirabelle tried to ignore how her skin tingled beneath his touch. “She’s elusive. She doesn’t appear simply because one peers out a window.”
    “Even so, I’d hear what you see.” He stepped closer, so near the air around her filled with his scent.
    Mirabelle set her lips in a tight, irritated line, doing her best not to notice how delicious he smelled. It was a bold, provocative mix of wool and leather, pure man and something exotic, perhaps sandalwood, the whole laced with a trace of peat smoke. Entirely too beguiling, the heady blend made her pulse race.
    Furious that was so, she straightened her back, determined to focus on anything but him.
    She failed miserably.
    Awareness of him sped through her; a cascade of warm, tingly sensations that weakened her knees and warmed unmentionable places. His near-naked proximity also made it impossible to think. Never had she been in such a compromisingly intimate situation. She certainly hadn’t experienced the like with a man so brazen, so devilishly attractive.
    As if he knew she was uncomfortable, he placed his hand at the small of her back, urging her closer to the broad stone ledge of the window. “I’d have your answer, Lady Mirabelle. I am no’ a patient man.”
    “Very well.” Mirabelle leaned forward, pretending tostudy the darkened courtyard below. A hard rain was falling and the bailey stood empty, the cobbles gleaming wetly. Torches burned in the sheltered arcade circling the large, open space. A few guards, spearmen, huddled in a corner where a small brazier cast a red glow against the wall of a pillared walkway. Nothing else stirred.
    She drew a tight breath, wishing she hadn’t mentioned the ghost.
    She turned to face her tormentor. “The pink lady is not down there.”
    “I didnae expect she would be, prowling—”
    “I’m sure she drifts or hovers.” Mirabelle held his gaze. “She’s had her heart torn and is searching for her husband. Such a soul wouldn’t—”
    “She wouldn’t drift, hover, or prowl, because she isn’t real.” He came closer, gripping her chin and tilting her face upward. “The pink lady’s existence is as unlikely as a flesh-and-blood lady letting herself into my bedchamber. Even women who are not of gentle birth only enter this room at my invitation.” He looked at her, his gaze steady and penetrating. “I do not recall extending such an offer to you.
    “So I’ll ask again.” He slid his thumb over the corner of her mouth, then along the curve of her bottom lip. “Why are you here?”
    Mirabelle shivered. She didn’t know if it was because of the way he was looking at her or if her body was simply reacting to his touch.
    Without question, he was the most dangerously handsome man at court.
    She suspected in all the land.
    He was also the man most suited to aid her.
    So she stepped back, summoning all her courage. “You know women well,” she owned, her heartbeat quickening. “I do have a reason for this visit. It has nothing to do with the castle ghost.”
    “So we near