Seducing the Highlander by Emma Wildes Read Free Book Online Page A

probably knows already that a large party rode north, and to where. He will also realize it is a McCray he is trying to rob and ruin, and put the pieces together. Frankton is amoral and ruthless, and it will be no loss to this earth when I kill him, but he isn’t stupid.”
    “In the meantime, my father sits in jail.”
    Ian’s mouth thinned at the hotheaded open criticism, and he regarded his young cousin from across the table. “I cannot rush out and handle this in a fit of anger. Neither can I allow you to approach the baron. He’s too clever, and well guarded by his heavy purse, traveling with a hired force everywhere he goes. No, let him come here for his future bride and demand her release.”
    “What if he doesn’t?” Robbie argued, the lines around his mouth showing his fatigue and resentment of his helplessness. “The world is full of comely lasses. He’ll simply find someone else to ease his lust. I know you are laird and I rarely doubt you, but I am not sure of your plan, Ian.”
    As if on cue, Ian heard a soft, intimately familiar voice, followed by a melodic laugh. With a look toward the stairs that curved into the main hall where they sat, he saw that Leanna descended the steps, about halfway down. Rossie, at her side, was talking quickly, and both women, who seemed to have formed a swift friendship, were smiling.
    “That’s her,” Angus stated in his forthright, gruff way. “Tell me, Robbie, lad, do you still think he won’t come to retrieve this particular prize?”
    Robbie glanced at the stairwell, his cup suddenly arrested in the very act of being lifted to his mouth.
    Ian couldn’t blame him. He caught his breath every time he saw her.
    This evening Leanna wore soft blue, a dress that had once belonged to his younger sister—now married and living in Stirling—altered by the village seamstress to fit Leanna’s graceful, slender figure. Her shining golden hair, so lovely and unusual, was gathered softly away from her face, exposing her elegant bone structure and haunting dark blue eyes. It was more than her compelling beauty that attracted men, he’d decided in the past days—and nights—trying to analyze his own potent attraction to his English captive. It was her quiet femininity, the hidden passion under her demure, ladylike exterior, the refined way she moved and smiled.
    “Jesus,” Robbie muttered. “Is she an angel?”
    “Or a beautiful witch?” Angus replied dryly, with a sidelong look. “She apparently casts a powerful spell. Ask your laird, lad.”
    It was true; Ian couldn’t deny it. He was in her arms every night, taking her over and over so that she slept half the day away from the exertions of their lovemaking, her pale thighs sticky with his semen, her body sated from his passion.
    Robbie tore his gaze away from the young woman coming toward them. “Are you bedding her, Ian?”
    Since it was common enough knowledge around the castle and probably the entire countryside, Ian merely lifted a brow.
    Robbie’s gaze flew back. “Well, well,” he said softly, “if you tire of fucking her, let me know.”
    “I won’t,” Ian replied, his curt lack of hesitation startling even him.
    Angus shook his head in obvious resignation, dashing more ale into his cup. “Oh, my lad. I tried to warn you, Ian. I did. That busy cock of yours is currently head of this clan.”

    Leanna sipped her wine and smiled, though she was more than a little uncomfortable. Having a tray delivered to her room was lonely, but dining at a table full of men was sometimes too much the opposite. Since Ian, as chief of the clan, was unmarried, she sat just to the left of the head of the table. Besides the barrel-chested Angus’s wife, she was the only female, and though she knew the men tried to do their best to remain polite, the conversation often became boisterous.
    Ian’s cousin, the good-looking young man introduced as Robbie McCray, watched her with steady dark eyes, looking so much like a