The Lady and the Laird by Nicola Cornick

Author:Nicola Cornick [Cornick, Nicola]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Regency, Fiction, Adult, Historical Romance
ISBN: 0373777418
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2012-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

BY FOUR IN the afternoon they had reached Findon, a small town on the coast. Lucy was swaying with exhaustion, aching in every limb and starving hungry, but she had tried her best to hide it from Robert. She felt nervous and on edge and very aware of him. She told herself it was simply their physical proximity, manifest in the brush of his body against hers as he rode Falcon with strength and easy grace, the hard muscle of his thighs, the protective clasp of his arms about her. Yet what she felt was more than simple awareness. She felt vulnerable, as though she had been unable to defend herself against him. Robert had seen all these things about her that she had not even suspected herself. She did not know how it was possible for him to understand her so well when no one else did.

She had never previously thought herself in the least bit wild. Alice had been the wild one, forever tumbling into trouble. Lucy had been the sensible twin, and after Alice’s death that propriety had become suffocating. She had failed Alice the one time it had really mattered and to atone she had tried to turn herself into even more of a model of perfection. But the wildness that must always have been buried deep in her had still escaped. It had escaped in the writing of those shocking letters. It had escaped in the primitive fury she had felt when Wilfred had attacked her. It had escaped when she was in Robert Methven’s arms.

He held her now, reins in one hand, the other clasped possessively about her waist. It felt strange and disturbing but also treacherously good.

She distracted herself by looking about at the neat, respectable houses, the streets swept clean and the smartly painted shop fronts. The place looked a great deal better cared for than the Cardross estates. There was a stone jetty where boats bobbed at anchor and the fishing nets were drying in the sun. The air was sharp and keen and scented with the tang of fish and salt.

“This is very pretty,” Lucy said. “Who owns the land hereabouts?”

“I do,” Robert said. “I own this sweep of the coast and out there—” He gestured to the hazy blue of the sea. “I own Golden Isle.”

He reined in and for a moment sat staring at the scatter of dark islands on the horizon. There was something in his eyes: pride, yes, but something else Lucy could not read or understand, something darker. She thought for a moment that he might say something else, but instead he turned the horse abruptly down a cobbled side street, where the afternoon shadows cooled the air, and clattered through an arched gateway and into an inn yard.

Their arrival caused a degree of flurry. The landlord, a fair florid man in his mid-fifties, immediately came running, wiping his hands on the large striped apron about his waist.

“My lord!”

“McLain.” Robert swung down from the saddle and held out his hand.

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