Until the Knight Comes Read Online Free PDF Page B

what she saw made her breath catch, all but choked her.
    Without question,
he
led the men still pouring into Cuidrach’s hall. Marked as a knight by the flash of his spurs and the glint of mail showing beneath his plaid, his arrogant stance, and the cold, assessing look in his eyes revealed his status.
    Even more telling, three vertical scars marred his left cheek. Thin, barely-there lines, but prominent enough to warn that he was a man battle-probed and hard.
    One who weathered his storms and would not be disposed to make light of falsehoods.
    Or fall easy prey to contrived feminine intrigues.
    Proving it, he boldly touched her hair, smoothing back the errant strand she’d been trying to puff out of her face. And the instant his fingers lit on her cheek, another dangerous-looking half-smile curved his attractive mouth.
    Mariota stepped back from his reach, tried in vain to ignore the disturbing
intimacy
of his stare.
    The intimacy of everything about him.
    “You are here alone?” he spoke again, his deep voice provocative.
    Softly Highland, seductively smooth, but undeniably . . . challenging.
    Mariota bristled, found her steel in the shaming way his mere voice undid her. “What is the meaning of this?” She made a sweeping gesture, indicating the men tramping about, shouldering goods or dashing rain from their hair and beards. Some even lighting wall torches and setting up trestle tables.
    Almost laying claim to Cuidrach.
    Acting as if they belonged here.
    Her mouth going dry at the notion, she glanced at Nessa, noted what could only be called grim humor twitching that one’s lips.
    Mariota frowned.
    She saw nothing amusing in their plight.
    She looked back at
him,
hoped her cheeks weren’t as bright a red as she suspected. “I warn you, sirrah, if my friend and I are but two this e’en, we shall not be so few in number much longer,” she lied, wishing he didn’t make her feel like a sparrow caught in the talons of a hawk. “My husband’s return is imminent.”
    “Indeed?” The knight arched a brow. “And who might this paladin be?” he inquired, his tone indicating he hadn’t missed the ravages wrought upon the hall by years of disuse. “I wonder at a man who’d leave his lady unguarded in such a comfortless keep.”
    “And where is
your
lady this cold, inhospitable night?” Mariota shot back, her words edged. “Safe, dry, and well-cosseted—or no?”
    “I do not have a lady,” he said, giving her another penetrating stare. “But if I did, you can be assured she would not be dwelling here unguarded.”
    “An ill matter, aye,” a stout-bellied man chimed in as he bustled past, red-faced and puffing under the weight of the iron-bound coffer hoisted upon his shoulder.
    “Ne’er seen the like,” another agreed, stroking his great bush of a sandy-colored beard. “Master of the house leaving two fine-looking women to fend for themselves in this remote upland bit of nowhere.”
    Ignoring the Nordic-looking beard-puller, Mariota kept her focus on the dark, lady-less knight. “If you find these walls without succor, sir, then I ask you again, why are you here?”
    She tilted her head to study him, her perusal gaining her a moment to compose herself before yet another untruth passed her lips.
    Before his searing gaze could fluster her into forgetting who she was supposed to be.
    In especial, when that all-knowing gaze seemed so wont to settle on things she’d rather he’d not notice.
    Like her mouth.
    Her damp braids.
    And worse, the chill-tightened nipples she knew were thrusting hard against the soft drape of her cloak.
    Things that might reveal the lusty, hearty woman she’d once been. The stranger who now slept inside her and best not be wakened. Not even in the familiar guise of a well-loved laird’s daughter, accustomed from birth to give a warm welcome to the weary traveler.
    Any weary traveler.
    However disturbing.
    Tensing, she touched a finger to the fine silver brooch fastened at the