Seduced by a Highlander by Paula Quinn

tone and large, wary eyes. She was like an unbridled rush of fresh air to his lungs, and he wanted more. “Now that I’ve enjoyed the view from such a vantage point, Miss Fergusson”—he moved quietly toward her—“I confess the likelihood is quite high.”
    He didn’t miss the high flush spreading across her cheeks, or the way she practically trembled with the effort it took her not to tear one of the old swords off the wall and strike him with it.
    “Is this where I am supposed to swoon like all yer other little sheep?” she asked him, relying on her sharp tongue instead. She wielded it with zest. “They might think ye are a ram, but I know now what ye truly are.”
    No one knew that, not even him, Tristan thought as his wee game of seeking to bask in her temper came to an abrupt end. Outwardly, he could be many things, change with his surroundings like a chameleon. But nowhere in him was there a cold-blooded killer.
    “Tristan?”
    Someone called out from down the corridor. It was Mairi’s voice. Hell. The rest of his kin might disregard his interest in Isobel, trusting that it would not last long and knowing there was nothing they could do about it short of locking him away somewhere, but Mairi had a tendency toward violence.
    “Meet me in the Privy Garden at midnight,” he said quickly, counting the moments until his sister saw them together, “and let me prove that ye’re wrong.”
    Isobel looked about to laugh, and for an instant Tristan considered giving up all to watch her do it.
    “My answer,” she told him tightly, “is the same as the last time ye invited me fer a walk. Ye are deranged if ye think I will agree to a clandestine meeting with my worst enemy, Mister MacGregor. Utterly and completely deranged.”
    He had to agree with her. A casual interest was one thing. Trying to win the favor of Archibald Fergusson’s daughter was another. He could likely be tossed out of Camlochlin for such betrayal. He didn’t know why his father hadn’t done it already with all the trouble he’d caused his kin over the years. “Please, fer yer brothers’ sake then.” He added a smile to his mad request and left her looking after him.
    Four hours later, Isobel drew her cloak around her shoulders and cursed under her breath while she stepped out into the Privy Garden. What was she doing meeting Tristan alone in the darkness? She had to be as deranged as he, but for her brother’s sake she would do anything. Oh, the scoundrel! Were his words a threat of danger, or a promise of protection? No, not protection. He was not the man she had first believed him to be. Why would any MacGregor promise a Fergusson safety? None of Tristan’s kin had cared what had happened to her and her brothers after they killed her father. And why should they? The MacGregors had no understanding of what they had truly taken from Archibald Fergusson’s bairns. They believed they had been merciful in leavingthe children alive, a belief that for many years Isobel doubted was correct.
    A brisk breeze snapped her hair across the bridge of her nose. She swept the lock away with her pinkie and looked around. Beneath the milky glow of the low moon, the statues appeared like ghostly sentinels, sent to watch over Whitehall’s private Eden. As her vision adjusted to the dim light, she studied each sculpture, waiting for Tristan to step out from behind one of them.
    She should not have come. Tristan MacGregor was too dangerous, not only to her brothers, but to her. She could not deny the dangerously charismatic appeal that drew women to him like insects to a flame—including her, before she had known his true identity.
    She almost breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that he wasn’t coming. It seemed he had more sense than she did. She would go back to the palace, back home to her kin, and put Tristan MacGregor out of her mind for good.
    “Isobel.”
    His deep voice behind her played over her nerve endings as if on a drum. Or