Ravished by a Highlander by Paula Quinn Read Free Book Online

the doubt in the quirk of her brow and easing
     it.
    “Now I’ll ask ye the same question,” Rob said, snatching Davina’s attention back to him. “What were ye doin’ there?” He pulled
     on the plaid swathing his shoulders and her eyes followed the wool as it slipped down his chest.
    “I lived there.”
    “But Asher called ye Lady Montgomery.”
    “My parents were peers. They died when I was a child and the sisters of St. Christopher’s raised me.”
    He said nothing but let his eyes linger over her robes. Then, in a sterner voice, he asked, “Which duke and earl did ye speak
     of earlier?”
    She watched him try to pull his tunic up over his belly using only one arm and failing. “The Earl of Argyll and the Duke of
     Monmouth.” No harm in telling him that much, since he likely knew already.
    He stopped moving and looked at her, surprise and a flicker of alarm making his eyes spark like jewels in the twilight. He
     cut his gaze to Will. “Monmouth? King James’s nephew?”
    “James is not yet King,” Davina reminded him.
    Both Highlanders looked at her at the same time, but it was Rob who spoke. “And ye are no’ a novice of the Order.”
    “But I am. I will take my vows next spring.”
    Rob’s eyes darkened briefly as disappointment skittered across his features. Just as quickly, his resolve hardened, along
     with his jaw. But the flash of something soft in him was a thousand times more dangerous than his friend’s effortless charm.
    “Monmouth and Argyll have both been exiled to Holland,” Colin said over the crackle of flames.
    Davina nodded. “And it was their Dutch army who attacked us.”
    “Why do they want ye dead?”
    She turned to Rob when he asked the question. What if he truly didn’t know? She wanted to believe that he didn’t, that he’d
     saved her for no other reason than he was a decent man. She did not know the world or how to stay alive in it on her own and
     needed someone to help her, just for a little while. That moment of vulnerability she saw in him tempted her to trust him.
    “’Tis ye they were after, aye, lass?” he continued when she remained silent. “All the sisters were killed with the hope that
     ye were among them.”
    Davina swiped a tear from her cheek at the stark truth of his words. They were all dead because of her.
    “Why? Who are ye?”
    “I am no one.”
    Oh, how she wished it were true. She would give anything, anything to have it be true.

Chapter Five

    A s breathtakin’ as ye are, lass, I canna’ believe so many men lost their lives over no one.”
    It wasn’t the way Rob’s hard eyes warmed on Davina or the low lilting cadence of his voice when he called her breathtaking
     that made her look away. Though in truth, she did not know how to react to such boldness, or why it made her palms warm. She
     dragged her gaze from his because what he said after that was correct, and she could not hide the pain of it.
    He moved closer to her, the warmth of his body seeping into her own. “Verra well, then, Davina. Ye are no one. Fer now.”
    He merely crooked his mouth at her when she looked at him again, but it made her want to tell him everything. She smiled back
     instead and reached for his shoulder. “Forgive me for shooting you… if you are innocent.”
    “I am, and I already have.” His breath along her jaw as she helped him out of his tunic sent a warm spark down Davina’s spine.
     The firelight bouncing across the golden expanse of his bare back awed her. She didn’t have to trust him to appreciate his
     splendid male physique, something she would surely have to ask forgiveness for later. He looked just as hard as he felt.
    “I would not have you think me insolent or unappreciative of what you did for me today.” Oh, why couldn’t she just shut up?
     Because she needed something to keep her mind off his silken angles beneath her fingers. She’d never touched a man’s bare
     flesh before and felt her face growing flush. “I do not