A Highland Folly by Jo Ann Ferguson Page A

how she had drawn up her skirt to keep it from being soiled. No wonder he had been wearing that smile as he looked at her. She was dressed no better than a ladybird.
    His hand caressed her neck before his fingers tangled in her hair as he tilted her lips beneath his. No words formed in her jumbled mind. The sensation of him against her swept aside every other thought. Staring at his lips, she could not halt her hands from discovering his brawny arms.
    â€œI have thought often of what might happen if I were with you alone in such a secluded spot,” he murmured, blue-hot fire burning in his eyes. “Lovely Anice, with your hair ablaze and your eyes like twin storms, I have thought night after night of this moment.”
    â€œDon’t …” Her protest vanished into a sigh when his fingertip caressed her ear. A quiver sliced through her, potent and persuasive.
    â€œWhy not?” he whispered against her other ear.
    The heat of his breath whirled within her, a prelude to the pleasures his eyes suggested. Again he guided her lips toward his. Forgetting everything but the sweet promise of rapture on his lips, she wanted to be held, to be lured from her despair, to delight in forbidden kisses.
    â€œAnice! What are you doing?”
    Aunt Coira’s reproving gasp echoed through the barn, and Anice pulled herself away once more. As she smoothed down her kilted skirt, which suggested an intimacy they had not shared, her face flamed with mortification. She did not look at either her aunt in the doorway or at Lucais.
    He smiled coldly. “She was about to sell me her soul, Mrs. Kinloch.” When Aunt Coira scowled, he asked, “Isn’t that what all of you Kinlochs think? That I am the devil and she is my prey? Did you ever ask yourself that it might be Anice who is trying to seduce me here in this trysting place?”
    Anice cried, “You know that is not true!”
    â€œMayhap so, but it makes us even after the lies you have lathered me with today.” He gripped her shoulders, all gentleness gone from him. “But I will be honest with you. You need to stay away from that meeting tonight. It is sure to lead you into more trouble.”
    Aunt Coira snapped, “Young man, release her this very minute.”
    Obeying, Lucais dipped his head toward Aunt Coira. “Good day, Mrs. Kinloch.” He looked back at Anice, and his eyes still scorched her with their fury. “I bid you a good day and what I hope will be a pleasant evening, Anice.”
    Not wanting to retort when Aunt Coira was listening, Anice let her breath slide out in a deep sigh as Lucais walked out of the barn. Mayhap she should be grateful that Aunt Coira had intruded as she had. Surrendering to Lucais’s tender seduction would be a mistake, especially when things were so uneasy.
    â€œAnice,” chided Aunt Coira, “you should know better. I thought you had learned your place despite your upbringing.”
    She knew she should ignore the insult aimed at her mother as she had those of so many others since she had arrived at Ardkinloch, but her emotions were too frayed to hold back. “Aunt Coira, I will thank you not to speak of my mother that way.”
    â€œShe should have brought you home here as soon as Ailbert died. Your place as your father’s heir was here at Ardkinloch, not in some heathen country on the far side of the world.”
    â€œAunt Coira—”
    Once started, her aunt clearly did not intend to be silenced until she had said her fill. As she berated Anice’s parents’ lack of good sense and how the family now was suffering for it, she barely paused to take a breath.
    Anice pretended to listen, knowing that anything she said to defend her parents, most especially her mother, would be dismissed as worthless. More and more she was understanding why her father had used any excuse to leave Ardkinloch and why her mother chose not to return.
    As her aunt continued, Anice