Flirting with Ruin by Marguerite Kaye Page B

whirled and spun around the confined space. Out of place among the villagers, he was tall, and had about him an air of authority. He was well-built too. While neither wiry nor brawny, there could be no doubting the muscle under that coat. A rather well-cut coat it was too. He had a rugged face, tanned, with a vicious scar the shape of a crescent moon curving across his cheek. The skin was new there, pulled tight and painful looking. He had dark hair, slightly longer than was the fashion. Meeting his gaze, she encountered a pair of grey eyes. Lines crinkled at their corners. Too much sun, or too much something. She flushed and looked away, concentrated on not tripping, on keeping up, but every time she snatched another glance their eyes met.
    As she changed partners again, Rosalind wondered why he did not ask her to dance. She could ask him, she told herself. She had done so, audaciously, before. A wager, that had been, at some high-society ball. She couldn’t remember the man in question. This man would not be so easy to forget. It was that which stopped her from asking. She sneaked another look at him as she passed, and he smiled at her. Sort of smiled, anyway. Though she hadn’t meant to, she found herself meeting his gaze yet again. He was—compelling. Perspiration prickled the small of her back. Why didn’t he just ask her to dance?
    Then the music paused, and he stepped forward at last. ‘My turn, I think,’ he said, and caught her in his arms as the fiddlers started up again, surprising them both at how quickly he moved them out of reach of her astonished partner. Perversely, she was irritated at not having refused him. ‘You were rather rude to that young man,’ Rosalind said breathlessly. ‘We were not finished our dance.’
    ‘Then he should have put up more of a fight.’
    ‘You did not give him much of a chance, and I wouldn’t care to bet against you if he did.’ She’d been right about the muscles. There was no reason for that to excite her, but it did. She wondered what they would feel like flexing beneath his bare skin, and was astonished to find herself wondering, horrified to feel herself flushing. ‘What are you doing here? You are not one of the villagers, that is for certain.’
    ‘I could say the same of you.’
    He held her lightly but firmly. Close enough for their legs to brush, for her to feel the heat of his body. Not too close, but enough for her to wish it was, which was most unlike her. ‘Do I detect a northern accent?’ she asked.
    ‘Aye, I’m from Scotland, though I’ve not been back for a long time. I didn’t think it was noticeable.’
    ‘I like it. You’ve been in the army.’ It was a statement rather than a question. With that scar, that authoritative bearing, those eyes that saw everything, had seen everything, there could be no other explanation.
    He nodded.
    ‘You are on your way home then?’ Rosalind probed.
    He did not contradict her. ‘And you?’
    ‘I am visiting friends.’
    ‘Who did not see fit to accompany you tonight?’
    ‘No.’ Rosalind’s hackles rose at the implied criticism. ‘I am six-and-twenty years old, and perfectly capable of taking care of myself.’
    ‘In other words, I am to mind my own business.’
    She smiled. ‘I came here to escape.’
    She half expected him to ask why. She was half relieved, half disappointed when he did not. Not that she could have answered. Or wished to. ‘That makes two of us,’ he said instead, surprising her.
    She had to work very hard not to ask what he was escaping from. The music came to a stop. She did not want it to stop. She did not want to dance with anyone else. She didn’t want his hand to let go of her waist.
    ‘Come on, let’s get out of here before I have to fight for you,’ he said, ushering her through the door of the taproom as if he had read her mind. ‘It’s Fraser, incidentally. In case you wanted to know.’
    His smile was like his eyes. Warm, and yet reserved. A hard kind of