Plaid to the Bone by Mia Marlowe Page A

embrace and held her still.
    The man discomfited her out of all knowing. He was arrogant and brash. And patient and tender. Which was the real man? Or were they all him, light and dark, good and evil in some jumbled up chimera of a person? And if he continued to befuddle her like this, how could she find enough to hate about him to send him to his end?
    “I may be a maiden, but I ken well enough what’s supposed to happen now.” She might know the mechanics of the ultimate act, but no one had prepared her for the devastating force of some of the preliminaries that had happened between her and Adam Cameron.
    He’d given to her. And didn’t seem inclined to take.
    “What . . . what about ye? Ye havena . . .”
    “There’ll be time enough for that after we’ve said the words in kirk, lass,” he said as he rolled onto his back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Though I’ll no’ say ye dinna tempt me sore.”
    She struggled to sit up. Aye, she still had possession of her body, it seemed, but she felt so different inside her own skin now. Scattered. Out of control.
    There. Her womb clenched once more, a final, joyful squeeze. Even now, she wasn’t entirely her own. Adam Cameron had forced pleasure on her. And she’d liked it.
    If a man felt even half as much pleasure in the act of marriage as Adam had just given her, she had to admit he was being chivalrous in the extreme by refusing to take her maidenhead.
    “Thank ye,” she said softly. “I promised my father I’d be wed a virgin.”
    He chuckled and rolled off the bed. Then he leaned down and gave her a final deep kiss. “And I promised your maid Grizel that I’d be on my best behavior.”
    Her mouth sagged open. Her father would never consider a promise to her maid binding. He barely spoke to Grizel beyond issuing orders or railing at her for some imagined misdeed. “Ye would keep your word to my servant?”
    “I have little choice but to keep my word.” He smiled down at her. “I’ve no great wish to find an adder in my boot, aye?”
    Then his smile faded and his eyes took on a warm glow. “I doubt I’ll see ye again till we meet in kirk. Sleep well now, mistress.” One of his dark brows arched rakishly. “I dinna plan to let ye sleep much tomorrow night.”
    Then he turned and left the chamber without a backward glance.
    Cait burrowed into the bedclothes, pulling the warm linens up to her chin. Some of Adam Cameron’s unique scent had been grafted into the fibers and she inhaled him to her toes.
    The man’s on his best behavior, he says. And all because he made a promise, she thought drowsily as lethargy stole over her body. Should he decide to be wicked, I’m truly lost.
    Cait skimmed the surface of sleep, but didn’t manage to plunge into its blackness. Fragments of another promise kept rising in her mind to hold her in the waking world.
    “Do ye, Cait Grant, by yer own blood and by the head of yer father, pledge to carry out all ye have sworn to do?” Morgan MacRath droned.
    “Aye, I so swear,” she’d whispered and the sound echoed around the crypt in retreating sibilance. Her father gave her a nod of grudging approval as Morgan MacRath held a dagger before her. It dripped redly, but Cait was expected to kiss the iron at the juncture of the haft and tang.
    She leaned forward and pressed her mouth to the cold metal. The coppery scent of blood made her belly flutter. She tasted it on her lips, but she didn’t turn a hair. She didn’t wish to show weakness before her father or his otherworldly counselor.
    Not when Wallace Grant was finally pleased with his only daughter.
    Cait threw back the bedclothes and clambered out of bed. How could she wallow in the scent of her father’s enemy? How could she let the man touch her, and not just her body, but her spirit as well? What a conniving devil Adam Cameron was. He was halfway to convincing her he was a decent gentleman with his promise to her servant and all.
    She paced the length of