Highland Heat 2 - All The King's Men by Chera Zade Page A

fireplace to pull the book out.  
    But he didn’t even get out of bed. “You lion-hearted little fool.”
    “I’m sorry,” I cried, because in my moment of triumph, it did feel like some manner of betrayal. But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Major Anderson had known of my Jacobite sympathies when he seduced me. He’d known I might spy upon him when he asked me to become his mistress. He’d even jested that it would be an entertaining game of cat and mouse between us.  
    He’d just never counted on my besting him…
    “Well, you should be sorry, Sorcha,” he snapped, thumping the empty mattress beside him. “Because you made the wrong choice. The brave choice, but the foolish one. Do you know that bravery and foolishness so often go together—and with such disastrous results—that I’d rather have a clever coward under my command than a courageous clot-head.”  
    He said all this crossly.  
    But he ought to have been more than cross to watch months of his work going up in smoke.  
    “What was the right choice?” I asked, eying the door, wondering if it would be possible to make a run for it in my night shift. It was a fortress filled with soldiers, though. I wasn’t likely to make it twenty feet.
    “The right choice would’ve been to read the book,” my lover said, with a very disappointed sigh. “Knowledge is power. That’s the first tenet of espionage, my dear.”
    Resigned to the fact there was no escape, I defiantly raised my chin. “And what would I have learned from reading it?”
    He smirked. Very smugly I might add. “The first thing you’d have learned is that it was a book of empty pages. From that, you might have deduced that it had been planted there for you to find. The next logical step, of course, would have been to put it back where you found it and never let on, so as to lull me into a false sense of security and trust. But you let your emotions get away with you. You also stepped on a creaky floorboard near the chest; I chose this room because of that creak, so that was a bit of bad luck for you.”
    The realization of how I’d been manipulated sent my mind reeling. “You tricked me,” I said, with a gasp. “All these weeks together, squiring me about on your arm as your mistress, sending me sweets and little gifts during the day, whispering sweet words against my skin, and taking pleasure in my body at night—”
    “Oh, you did precisely the same thing, Sorcha,” the Englishman said, entirely unchastened. “Minus the squiring and the treats and gifts. The difference between us is that I know who you are, and what you are, and I even admire you for it. Whereas you haven’t apprehended my nature in the slightest. What did you expect was going to happen to you when I realized the book was gone and that you were probably to blame?”
    “I expected that you might imprison me or kill me.”
    The major’s eyes bulged. “ Kill you? My god, woman. You really do believe that Englishmen are monsters, don’t you? I don’t kill women—especially not a woman I’ve taken into my bed. I’m incapable of it. That does not, however, mean that I’m incapable of giving you the thrashing of your life. Which you quite deserve. Quite . For getting caught, if nothing else. So come back to bed this instant, or I’ll be forced to fetch my belt.”
    Given that I had believed myself to be facing mortal peril, and my heart was still thumping wildly in my ears, it seemed like a reprieve. And yet, I was so angry, I stood where I was. “I don’t want to share a bed with you.”
    The major lifted a brow. “Think carefully, my dear. The hour is late and I would prefer to end the evening with sweet lovemaking, but if I am not obeyed, I will happily whip your arse to a pretty rose red hue, and take a great deal of pleasure in doing so…”
    There was no question that he meant what he said. And because I’d never taken a whipping in my life—so obedient a child was I—my lower lip wobbled