A Highlander for Christmas by Paula Quinn Page B

stairs, Finn’s smile turned into something harder. “Her.” He returned his attention to the marquess. “I want one night with her.”
    One night was all he needed.

Chapter Nine
    LESLIE BLEW BREATH into her fists but it did nothing to warm her. She had to have been mad to agree to meet Finn at midnight, outside, in the freezing temperature. But he’d sent her a message that it was urgent. The marquess’s men were sleeping in the barn, so she and Finn couldn’t meet there. But honestly, what in blazes was there to talk about? What was so important? Would they speak about how much they were going to miss each other? How different and empty their lives would be now? She rubbed her already red nose and willed the tear threatening to fall from her lid to stay where it was. She should have stayed in bed.
    “Ye’ll need to get used to this weather, bonny Leslie.”
    She didn’t turn at the sound of his voice, for she knew who it was. Besides, she didn’t trust herself to look at him.
    “You need to go back to Skye before he tries to force you to tell him about Camlochlin.”
    “I’ve already agreed to take him there personally.”
    She spun around to glare at him from beneath her hood. “What? Why would you? Oh, Finn, when I told him who you were, I didn’t mean for you to—”
    “My price was a night with ye,” he cut her off softly. “He agreed to it.”
    They both knew what it meant, but it was Leslie who voiced it out loud. “He agreed to wed me in order to come here and gain the directions to your home. That was all he wanted. He hasn’t stopped badgering us all night for the whereabouts to Camlochlin. I’m not surprised, really. I knew he wanted something other than me. It’s just as well, for I will never love him. In fact, I find him quite repulsive.”
    Finn smiled at her as if she’d just promised him the world. “That pleases me,” he said softly, “because I’ve come to take my night, and thousands more after it. I’ve come to save ye, Leslie.”
    If only he could without it costing lives… “I don’t need saving.”
    “Ye want to live a life of misery then?”
    “If my misery means saving the lives of those I love with my whole heart, then aye, I will live such a life.”
    Lord, why did he continue smiling at her? She wanted to smile back. An instant passed before she gave in to the temptation and then rushed into his arms when he moved toward her.
    They collided in a tangle of arms and languid, longing sighs that set fire to the air. She met the ardor of his kiss with the same need, hungry for the taste of him. How was she going to leave him again? She couldn’t. He shouldn’t have come, but her heart rejoiced that he had. He groaned at the passion between them. His embrace, pulling her deeper into him, heated her blood, her body.
    “My life returns.” His voice was low, his breath warm against her cheek when he broke their kiss.
    Leslie closed her eyes against him when he spoke, echoing her thoughts.
    “I don’t want to wed him, Finn.”
    “Ye’re not going to, my love. ’Tis I who will have ye as wife.”
    She looked up into his eyes, colored a deeper emerald in the twilight winter sky, and felt her heart go soft in her breast. It wasn’t his beauty that made her want to fall at his feet, but the passion he felt for her emitting from every inch of him. It was too dangerous. He’d come alone and didn’t stand a chance against the marquess…or Alan’s pistols if he tried to take her away.
    But now that he was here, in her arms, how could she turn him away again? “I cannot be your wife.”
    “If we could,” he asked her, snatching up her hands and bringing them to his lips, “would ye wed me?”
    Here was that moment that could change everything. She had but to lie to him and she was certain he would leave and go home without her.
    “Aye, I would. I knew I would be weak,” she confessed when his grin blazed across her heart, carefree and confident, almost as if he