An Accidental Seduction by Lois Greiman

nights.
    And if she spent one more damned hour in this stifling house she was going to lose her mind!
    Feeling her guise slip, Savaana jerked abruptly to her feet. She was at the door before she could stop her retreat. The carpet on the stairs was plush and silent beneath her slippers.
    “Gregors!” she called from the stairs.
    “Yes, my lady,” he said, appearing from nowhere. She stifled a jerk. It was as if he lived underfoot, popping up out of midair.
    “Fetch my cloak. I am going for a walk.”
    “In this chill weather, my lady?”
    Yes! Yes! God yes! She wasn’t accustomed to being trapped inside. She thrived in the open air, blossomed with activity. Tumbling, hiking, entertaining, but she revealed none of those things. Instead, she gave him her most withering look. “Might there be warmer weather available?” she asked, and half turned away.
    “In hell,” he said.
    “What?” She pivoted back, wondering rather wildly if she’d heard him correctly.
    “’Tis hard to tell,” he said, bowing smoothly. “I shall see that Emily is ready with your cloak ever so quickly.”
    “Do that,” she said, and though she couldn’t help but wonder about the old cadaver’s animosity toward the baroness, she was out of doors in a matter of minutes. The rain had begun anew before she returned from her ride on the previous day. Even so, she had insisted thatthe Irishman dismount and walk before they could be seen from Knollcrest’s high windows.
    The new day had brought intermittent sprinkles, but evening was setting in now, making everything still and secretive with the oncoming night. Hidden from the house by a small copse of rowan, she tilted her face toward the sky and stuck out her tongue, catching raindrops on its tip. They tasted like laughter, and she smiled as she wiped her chin.
    “Is that you yourself, lass?”
    She jumped as Gallagher stepped from the shadows near the barn. Behind him, the broad doors stood open.
    “Must you always be lurking about?” she asked.
    “Of course,” he said, and even in the dim mist she could see his smile. For a man who slept in the stables, he seemed ungodly happy. “I’m an Irishman, trained to lurk for hundreds of years.”
    “Have you?” Inside the barn, it looked warm and cozy. Diffuse light glowed from the interior, gilding the scattered straw, the ruminating ewes, the one horned milk cow. The horses were stabled farther down. Savaana stepped toward the shelter, drawn against her will and better judgment.
    “Pressed into secrecy from centuries of hiding from our betters,” he added. Moving back, he swept his hand in front of him, inviting her to enter his domain.
    “Your betters.” She raised a brow and watched him fromthe corner of her eye as she strode toward the byre. Sturdy pens filled with contented animals lined the wide aisle. “It’s good to know you realize your place, Wickingham.”
    If her intentional slaughter of his name bothered him, he did not show it. “Indeed I do,” he said. “’Tis well beneath the likes of you.”
    “Yes,” she agreed, then faced him full on, wondering if there was double meaning to his words.
    But his expression gave no clues. He was usually smiling, it seemed, and this moment was little different, unless there was an extra spark of mischief in his grin.
    “You do remember that I’m a married woman, do you not, Wicknub?”
    “Every waking moment, fair Clarette,” he assured her, then: “How does your shoulder fare?”
    “My shoulder?”
    “The one you injured during our ride.”
    “Oh, yes.” Holy hell, how hard could it be for her to remember she was supposed to be hurt? It wasn’t as if the ridiculously alluring smile on his ridiculously handsome face was addling her thought processes, so it was probably the forced inactivity that was hampering her thinking apparatus. “Though in actuality I was fine during the ‘ride.’ ’Twas the fall that caused the problem.”
    “Had I been thinking proper, I