of a boar? Red hair?”
She sucked in her breath and crossed her arms defensively as he continued to stare at her. “I want a man, not a conceited clown!”
“I am a man.”
She sniffed disdainfully. “I suppose you have the necessary physical attributes—but that is all.”
“For most women, that and what I have said before, would be more than sufficient.”
“Well, not for me! I want a man I can respect. A man I can admire. Why, I ride better than you, can surely loose an arrow better than you, and with more accuracy. I daresay I could even wrestle better than you, if I had to.”
“That may be true, my lady,” he replied coldly, “but I smell better than you.”
She gaped at him in outraged shock.
He leaned his weight casually on one leg and surveyed her slowly. Impertinently. “Let me guess the kind of man you think you would like for a husband. He will be admirably strong and a champion in the manly arts, as long as brute force is the main requirement. Such force is what he will bring to everything he does, including the marriage bed. Force, not pleasure. Not tenderness.
“At first, you will indeed respect him, until you realize that he gives you the same respect he gives his horse or his dog.” She looked about to speak, but he did not give her the chance. “I have seen what happens when a woman is forced into marriage too many times to wish to experience it myself. So calm yourself, my fiery Aileas. If you do not wish to marry me, simply tell your father so, and that will be the end of it.
“And as for that redheaded brute you seem to find so fascinating, I regret that the feeling is not reciprocated. He has left you.”
“What?”
“He left Dugall Castle immediately after the noon meal.” With that, George marched to his horse and took hold of the reins. He glanced back to look at her once more.
She stood motionless, no longer defiant, her expression one of surprise and dismay.
A primitive urge unlike any he had ever felt enveloped him, and suddenly, George’s veneer of elegance and breeding dissolved. He strode across the space between them and tugged Aileas into his arms, pressing a hot kiss onto her tempting lips.
Desire, raw and needy, coursed through his veins the moment he touched her, and when she seemed to melt into his arms, offering no resistance, he held her tighter, leaning into her and pushing his tongue into her yielding mouth.
But it was not George’s way to take without asking, or to behave with callous disregard, whatever his emotions, so his kiss changed, became gentler, more tender, yet still with the promise of that more powerful passion waiting to be released again-Her response startled and delighted him, for she began to return his passion, kissing him as if she desired him with a yearning equal to his own.
What was happening? He didn’t know. He could barely think, for he was overwhelmed and uncertain—
He broke away and, using every ounce of self-control he possessed, put a casual expression on his face as he looked into her desire-darkened eyes while she gasped for breath. “Go, Aileas, and tell your father that we shall not marry.”
She swallowed and backed away, nearly stumbling. Her fingertips touched her lips for a moment. Then she reached for her horse’s reins and yanked the unwilling beast out of the water. Still without speaking, she mounted swiftly and kicked her horse into a gallop. In another moment, she was on the other side of the trees, and then she was gone.
George sighed and slumped onto the ground near the banks of the brook. What had just happened here? What had he done?
He had never experienced anything like the sudden, wild, passionate desire he had felt for Aileas Dugall, and he could no more have prevented himself from kissing her than he could hold his breath for a day.
To what end?
How could he force his kiss on her like the worst of brigands, he who knew the price such unthinking, intense actions could exact?
Surely it was just as well that she didn’t want to be his wife. No other person had ever stripped away his self-control as she just had.
He would find someone else. Someone calm and pliant, who did not rouse him so. A gentle woman, who would not inflame him.
That was the kind of wife he needed.
Chapter Five
Aileas angrily swiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and then her nose. She wasn’t going to cry. Not over anything Sir George de Gramercie had said to her. And not over Rufus, either, if he could leave without so much as a farewell
She wrapped her arms tightly around the apple tree’s slender trunk and pressed her face against the rough bark.
Why would he go, and so abruptly? Did her hint of marriage to him strike him with such abhorrence that he had to flee?
“Aileas! Get down from there, now!”
Aileas gasped and Loosened her hold, looking down through the budding branches to see her father, who was standing at the base of the tree glaring at her, his hands on his hips, his gray brows lowered in annoyance and his lips turned down in a frown that always filled her with dread. He was rarely this angry, and it was very tempting to remain above him in the tree. “What is it, Father?”
“Get down!”
She dutifully obeyed, albeit slowly, and stood staring at the ground. One of the stable hands must have told him she had returned.
“What in God’s name did you say to Sir George?” he demanded.
No, not a stable hand. Sir George had returned and spoken to her father. She should have expected that, if she had been able to think clearly and logically. However, since their meeting by the brook, all she had wanted to do was get away from him and try to figure out why Rufus had gone away. She had been trying not to think about Sir George’s remarks or his astonishing, unexpected and completely overwhelming kiss.
It had not been easy.
“Well? Tell me—for he says that he doesn’t think you two should be wed. God’s holy heart, why not?”
“Did he give no reason?”
“No. He just smiled that damned smile of his and said I should talk to you.”
It took some firmness of purpose to refuse one of her father’s requests, but she was fast learning that Sir George was not all manners and charm.
No wonder her father was angry. Not only was his plan for her marriage being thwarted, but Sir George had refused to explain. That type of response always angered her father beyond measure.
“I suppose he feels we would not suit,” she murmured, realizing that when it came to facing her father’s wrath, she was not as brave as Sir George.
“Not suit? What kind of modern nonsense is this? It would be a good match for both of you, as any fool could see.”
“But if he has second thoughts, should we not respect them? After all, he is not a boy who cannot be credited with knowing his own mind.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Nor is he a girl who doesn’t understand what’s best for her.”
“Father, I—”
“He is rich, he has powerful friends, he has a fine estate and the best stewards in the south of England to run it.” Her father made a slightly scornful face. “He is good-looking, as far as that goes. What more do you want?”
Aileas rubbed her toe in the dirt and shrugged sullenly.
Sir Thomas’s expression softened a little. “Daughter, I know he is different from what you are