“I thank you, but no,” Sabrina assured him. “I should not like to take you away from your pleasures.” Glancing at the other table where Cora had been, she added archly, “You seem well occupied in ruining the local wenches.”
His eyes gleamed in appreciation. “More disapproval, mistress?”
“How you choose to spend your leisure is no affair of mine.”
“Indeed. But that has yet to prevent you from voicing your opinion of me.”
“I believe I have confined my remarks to common knowledge. Your exploits are adequately documented.”
“Aye, I’m a reprobate of the first order. You would do well to remember it.”
“You have given me scant reason to forget it,” she retorted tartly. “Both times we have met, you’ve been indulging your libertine propensities.”
When his lips tilted in arrogant amusement, Sabrina wondered if he had any notion just how devastating that half smile was. But of course he did. He looked as though he could read every thought that passed through her head.
Yet it was difficult to dislike him. His mind was uncommonly sharp, and his boldness appealing, even if it often caught her off guard—as it did now when he reached out to take her fingers and bow over her hand. The facile charm was automatic, effortless, yet it disturbed her all the same.
“I shall take my leave, then.”
She wanted desperately to withdraw her hand from the sensual invasion of his, but he wouldn’t release her. As he raised her fingers to his lips, Sabrina silently cursed him. It was unfair, how this man’s mere touch left her breathless and set her heart to pounding. Indeed, it was criminal that this dangerous rogue should be left free to unleash his compelling sexuality on helpless females.
He seemed aware of his potent affect on her, too, for his eyes were wickedness itself as he pressed a del
icate kiss on the sensitive skin at her wrist.
The careless caress sent wanton images flooding through her mind, images of her surrendering to his seduction in a moonlit garden. The appalling realization struck her that she wanted to surrender again…
In almost a daze, she heard his low, musical voice saying, “As you please, mistress. But we will follow close on your heels,” he added for Liam’s benefit, “should you require aid. Never let it be said that a McLaren shirks his duty.”
Sabrina was infinitely grateful when he at last released her trembling hand—and rather startled when his striking features suddenly turned cool.
“There’s danger in the Highlands,” he repeated. “You would do better to return home to Edinburgh where you belong.”
Sabrina glanced up at him sharply. The menace she had sensed in him before was back, as was the hint of smoldering anger she’d glimpsed in his eyes when she’d first arrived at the tavern. She wasn’t imagining that the air was filled with a new kind of tension as Niall McLaren stepped back a pace.
“We shall doubtless meet again,” he murmured grimly, making Sabrina certain he was not looking forward to the occasion.
Chapter
Two
“Wed?” Sabrina gasped, feeling the air flee her lungs. “You wish me to wed the McLaren?”
She stared at her grandfather as he reclined weakly against the pillows.
“Aye, lass,” the old Highlander rasped. “You’re the last hope of Clan Duncan. Your union with our McLaren allies will secure the future of our clan.”
Dazed, she shook her head. So this was the meaning of her grandfather’s urgent summons. She had scarcely arrived at his bedside when Angus launched baldly into his proposal, with no thought to sparing any sensibilities she might have.
“I’m dying of a weak heart, lass, and I must settle my affairs before I go. ’Tis left to you to save our clan.”
The fierce Highland chieftain she remembered from her childhood didn’t look as ill as she’d feared, Sabrina thought distractedly. The natural ruddiness of his age-lined cheeks shone through his pallor. And while he seemed to suffer a shortness of breath, his constitution appeared nowhere near as frail as she expected.
“I…don’t understand,” she said finally.
“What dinna ye understand? Yer kin need ye, Sabrina.”
“No…you’ve made that clear. But Niall McLaren…he cannot possibly have agreed to the marriage.”