Once Upon a Highland Christmas(48)

“To be sure, I didn’t!” Mirabelle found her tongue at his mention of the notorious tavern, an ill-famed place frequented by rogues and light-skirts. She jerked free, whirling to face him. “Nor am I a minx. I’m—”

“You are Lady Mirabelle.” His voice chilled, his eyes narrowing as he looked her up and down. He stepped back, folding his arms.

He made no move to cover his nakedness.

“I’d heard you were at court.” His gaze held hers, his face an unreadable mask. “Indeed, I’ve seen you in the hall a time or two. I didn’t think to find you here, in my bedchamber.”

“Neither did I.” Her chin came up. “I lost my way.”

“You’re also a terrible liar.” He angled his head, studying her. “You wouldn’t be here without a reason. My quarters are no place for a lady.” A corner of his mouth hitched up in a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “So tell me, to what do I owe the honor?”

Mirabelle drew a tight breath, the words lodging in her throat. The explanation, her carefully crafted plea for help, had slipped her mind. Vanishing as if she hadn’t spent hours, even days and nights, practicing everything she’d meant to say to him.

“Sir, you’re unclothed.” Those words came easy. They also caused her cheeks to flame.

“So I am.” He glanced down, seemingly unconcerned. Turning, he took a plaid and a shirt off a peg on the wall, donning both with a slow, lazy grace that embarrassed her almost as much as his nakedness.

“Now that I’m decent”—he placed himself between her and the door, crossing his arms again—“I’d know why you’re here.”

“I told you—”

“You told me a falsehood. I’d hear the truth.”

Mirabelle wanted to sink into the floor. Unfortunately, such an escape wasn’t possible and as she prided herself on being of a practical nature, she kept her head raised and flicked a speck of lint from her sleeve. Her mind raced, seeking a plausible explanation. It came to her when the wind whistled past the long windows, the sound almost like the keening cry of a woman.

“I thought to see the castle’s Pink Lady.” She didn’t turn a hair mentioning the ghost. Everyone knew she existed. Believed the wife of a man killed when England’s Edward I captured the castle nearly a hundred years before, the poor woman was rumored to be beautiful, her luminous gown a lovely shade of rose.

Mirabelle had quite forgotten about her until now.

But she did believe in bogles.

Her own home, Knocking Tower, abounded with spirits. She’d even encountered a few. Not a one of them had disquieted her as much as the man now standing before her, his arms still folded and the most annoying look on his darkly rugged face.

He was entirely too virile.

He also he proved a much greater threat than any ghost.

“The Pink Lady walks the courtyard, last I heard.” Sorley spoke with the masculine triumph of a man sure he knew better than the gullible female before him. His tone left no doubt that he didn’t believe in the bogle. “You would not have met her in my privy chambers.

“Come, I’ll show you where folk claim she prowls.” He wrapped his hand around her wrist and led her across the room to one of the tall, arch-topped windows. “Look down into the bailey. Tell me if you see her.”

“I won’t. See her, I mean.” Mirabelle tried to ignore how her skin tingled beneath his touch. “She’s elusive. She doesn’t appear simply because one peers out a window.”

“Even so, I’d hear what you see.” He stepped closer, so near that the air around her filled with his scent.

Mirabelle set her lips in a tight, irritated line, doing her best not to notice how delicious he smelled. It was a bold, provocative mix of wool and leather, pure man and something exotic, perhaps sandalwood, the whole laced with a trace of peat smoke. Entirely too beguiling, the heady blend made her pulse race.

Furious that was so, she straightened her back, determined to focus on anything but him.

She failed miserably.

Awareness of him sped through her; a cascade of warm, tingly sensations that weakened her knees and warmed unmentionable places. His near-naked proximity also made it impossible to think. Never had she been in such a compromisingly intimate situation. She certainly hadn’t experienced the like with a man so brazen, so devilishly attractive.

As if he knew she was uncomfortable, he placed his hand at the small of her back, urging her closer to the broad stone ledge of the window. “I’d have your answer, Lady Mirabelle. I am no’ a patient man.”

“Very well.” Mirabelle leaned forward, pretending to study the darkened courtyard below. A hard rain was falling and the bailey stood empty, the cobbles gleaming wetly. Torches burned in the sheltered arcade circling the large, open space. A few guards, spearmen, huddled in a corner where a small brazier cast a red glow against the wall of a pillared walkway. Nothing else stirred.