Heat of the Knight by Jackie Ivie

Author:Jackie Ivie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zebra Books
Published: 2007-01-15T16:00:00+00:00

There were some prices that were too high to pay. Langston had heard this, in one of the dark corners of one of the opium dens he’d frequented, a long time ago, in another lifetime, and when he was playing the part of another soulless addict with open ears. He hadn’t known what the words meant, but had stored it away for future reference. Now he knew what the old, underhand dealing, ex-pirate he’d been keeping company with had been saying. The price for this was high, almost too high.

He knew it when the pain he’d put in those transparent, sky-blue eyes had ferreted out and sought every bit of him that could feel hurt, and knew it was him who was doing it to her. That price was high. Then she’d said the words that left him feeling like he was cut open and bleeding. He’d rather have taken a deathblow at Culloden than continue doing what he still had to do. She was too volatile. She was too passionate. She was too full of life and emotion and joy and pain. She was too transparent.

The last was most intriguing, especially to one so used to darkness and hiding and lying. Having passion and abandon and the freedom of showing it was intoxicating to the point he almost forgot time and space and reason in the glory of kissing her and knowing she kissed him back willingly. So much so, that one of his own archers had to remind him of it with a perfectly aimed arrow.

It would never do. She was too open, too honest…too easily read. She was alive with each and every emotion, and they were so easily seen on her, it was frightening to one who stayed hidden. Why, if the Lady of Monteith was happy, it wouldn’t be possible to keep it hidden. Langston knew it, and cursed himself for the knowledge, and the stamina and strength and all the other words of description he’d just used for her. He had to have all of that. It was the only way. If she was happy, it wouldn’t stay hidden. Everyone would want to know why. It would be questioned. Everything would be looked at closer—including her husband…especially her husband. It would be Captain Barton and his rangers that would do the looking, too, and a Highland laird with what he had in mind was stripped of all his lands and titles, and then his head. There was too much at stake. Too many relying on what he was doing…too much to lose. He couldn’t chance it. Ever.

There was definitely a price to pay, and it was Langston who had to pay it, and keep paying it. That was the only way he could get the English to trust him enough to sell him back Highland properties. It was the only way he could get good wages back into Highland hands, get food and comfort into the bellies of their bairns. It was the only way he could get the Sassenach to look at, but not see, what he was actually doing, and why.

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