How to Seduce a Scot by Christy English Read Free Book Online

arm.
    â€œCatherine, you are wounded.”
    â€œI did not give you leave to use my given name.” She heard the priggishness of her own voice, but she could not help herself. He was standing so close, she had almost lost all breath she needed to speak. “It is not proper.”
    â€œSays the girl fresh from throwing knives.” She heard the laughter in his voice, doubtless at her expense. She kept her eyes down, but could not seem to move. The hand on her arm did not restrain her, but simply rested there, tempting her. She felt sorely tempted. If only she knew to what.
    â€œMary Elizabeth, see to your guests. Miss Middlebrook and I will be down directly.”
    Catherine knew that she ought to protest, but the thought of being alone with Alexander Waters for the space of only a few minutes thrilled her, just as throwing knives had. She had so little excitement in her life. It was delicious.
    Before she could open her mouth to protest out of a beleaguered sense of propriety, Mary Elizabeth spoke for her. “I already bound her wrist, Alex. There’s nothing in the world wrong with that dressing.”
    â€œDid you wash it with soap?”
    Catherine listened as a new, uncomfortable silence spiraled around them. She heard in her friend’s tone the first hint of chastisement. “No, Alex. You know that’s just an old superstition Mama repeats ad nauseam. No doctor agrees with her.”
    â€œHow many people do you know who visited a sawbones and lived to tell of it?” Alexander asked.
    Mary Elizabeth grumbled but did not answer. Catherine assumed that meant not very many. How terrible were the doctors in the wilds of the north, that they killed their patients?
    â€œDon’t take too long, Alex. I want my dinner soon.”
    â€œYou heathen, eating without changing your gown.”
    Catherine heard the teasing note in his voice and she looked up, expecting him to be looking at his sister with affection. Instead, she found him staring down at her, almost as if he were trying to memorize her face. This time, she did not blush, but stared back.
    Mary Elizabeth did not seem to notice anything amiss, for she strode out of the room without a backward glance. “Come downstairs as soon as you can get away from this beast, Catherine. We’ve got fine beef pasties to eat this night, along with some roasted carrots and onions.”
    â€œThank you,” Catherine said. She was going to decline her friend’s generous offer to dine with them in a duchess’s house. They had certainly overstayed their welcome. At least, her mother and her sister surely had, even if she had not. But Mary Elizabeth was gone before she could finish her thought, and she was left alone with the hulking Scot beside her.
    â€œSo, Miss Middlebrook. Let’s have a look at the wound you got from indulging in my sister’s shenanigans.”
    â€œWe are alone, sir. It is highly improper. I must go to my mother.” She forced the words from her lips, though for some reason it was Mr. Waters’s mouth that fascinated her. There was a sensuous quirk to his lips that she had not noticed before—as if he were a man who savored his life, his whisky, his food, and, no doubt, his women.
    She blushed hard at the thought and tried to pull away from him, hoping to put a distance between herself and her own wild imaginings. She had no idea what a man might do with a woman alone. She had only been told time and time again by her grandmother that she bloody well did not want to find out until a priest had blessed her union with her husband and there was a ring on her finger.
    Still, as she looked into the heat of Alexander Waters’s fine, dark eyes, she wondered.
    He looked down at her, and this time, the heat in his eyes faded as if it had never been. “Miss Middlebrook, I give you my word of honor as a gentleman, you have nothing to fear from me, now or ever. I would defend you with my