"My shift will be as good as gone if it gets wet."
"Then do not wear it in the water." He made that impudent suggestion without so much as blinking an eye.
"I can't do that!"
"Why not?"
"You are not serious."
"Explain this aversion you have to disrobing."
"I don't mind disrobing." But even saying the word made her blush. "In the privacy of my chamber, by myself" she stressed, "but I'm not about to do so in front of you."
"I admit doing so is not likely to have the calming effect on my sex I had wanted, but naked works best for swimming."
She knew the Highlanders looked at things differently, but this was totally outrageous. "You can't mean men and women swim naked together."
He shrugged. "Balmorals learn to swim when they are still babes. It is the way of things here."
"I am not a child."
"No. You are not."
"You said it works best to swim without your clothes." She paused, finding it difficult to utter the question that comment elicited. "Do you mean to say that you intend to take your plaid off as well?"
He gave her the devil's own grin and she knew he was enjoying her discomfort far too much. "Aye."
"You're daft! If your kisses are not bad enough, you cannot possibly expect me to do as you suggest."
"I told you daft is not a polite thing to call a laird."
"It is much ruder for you to demand I take my clothes off."
"I did not demand it. I suggested it."
"So I can keep them on?"
"Not if you want to avoid sinking to the bottom of the loch."
She went cold at the thought and felt her face draining of color. "This swimming thing is a bad idea. We will have to accept that I do not know how and leave it at that."
He shook his head. "You are becoming too excited over this. I am not suggesting you take your clothes off in front of my soldiers."
"Just you."
"You are going to be naked for me one way or another, Emily. You do not find my kisses bad at all… they make you hot, and merely being near enough to touch you makes me hotter than Hell in the summertime. I will try to preserve your maidenhead, but I am going to see you naked and caress you and learn your body's secrets."
Her entire body suffused with heat at his words and it wasn't embarrassment. He did make her hot like he said, but that didn't change anything. She could not give into him. "No."
"Yes."
"I am promised to Talorc."
"That is not something you should remind me of often. It makes the beast in me want to claim you as mine."
Did he really consider his lust a separate beast within him? Perhaps it was. She certainly felt urges that did not come from any place inside herself that she recognized. It was as if there was another Emily when she was in his company… a woman who craved things ladies were not even supposed to think about.
"Because he is your enemy?"
"Because you do not belong with him."
"You are so sure?"
"If you reacted to him the way you do to me, you would not have seen the kidnapping as a reprieve."
"I must marry him. I have no choice."
"You could stay with the Balmorals."
"You would give me sanctuary?"
"Yes."
But he said nothing about wanting to keep her for himself. In fact, as much as he wanted her, he had been careful to make no promises for the future. He was not looking for a wife, but for a woman who would slake the lust that raged like a beast inside him. She should be offended, mortified and a lot of other things her stepmother would have screeched at her, but all Emily felt was longing.
Nevertheless, she sighed and said, "I cannot stay."
"Tell me why."
So she told him about Abigail and her fear that her sister would be sent in her place.
He said nothing, but his expression turned thoughtful. "You wanted to bring your sister to live here in the Highlands."
"Yes."
"Talorc will not welcome her."
"I had hoped to change his mind."
"By calling him a goat?"
She blushed at the reminder. "I apologized."
"Did you?"
"Yes."
"What about my apology?"
"You want to apologize to me?" she asked facetiously.
His glare said he did not appreciate her humor. "You will tell me you are sorry for your insults to myself and my clan. I have waited long enough, English."
"And if I do, will you give up this idea of teaching me to swim?"
"No."
"Then I don't see why I should apologize."
"Because you were wrong."
"Perhaps…" She paused and then said, "Then again, perhaps not."
He shook his head. "Do you hope to make me angry enough to forget your lesson?"
He was far too clever for her liking. It was a ploy that had worked for her with her stepmother and father more than once. "Maybe," she admitted, "but truly… Lachlan you cannot expect me to disrobe in front of you. Not to mention the possibility of someone else coming along."
"I would hear their approach before anyone could get close enough to see you."
He really did have an exaggerated view of his strengths. "I don't think so."
"Come here, English."
"Why?" Did he plan to undress her himself? She truly must be depraved because the prospect was as thrilling as it was shocking.
"I want to kiss you."
"Oh." She had enjoyed their kisses to this point. Very much. More than she should, if she wanted to admit the truth. "But I don't think you should keep kissing me. I am promised to Talorc."
The muscle in Lachlan's jaw tensed. "This is the last time we will discuss this. I do not wish to hear of him again from your lips. Understand?"
"But, laird—"
Lachlan rudely interrupted, "The Sinclair has said before witnesses that he would not marry you."
"So?"
"Until he recants that statement, you are not betrothed to him."
"But our kings—"
"I told you, lass, we Highland lairds make our own laws. We cooperate with Scotland's king when it suits us. And only then."
"You mean you are all that way?"
"Aye. Even the lairds that are mere humans are still Celts. They will never submit to absolute rule by another."
"You think you are more than a mere human?" she asked, amused by his arrogance and secretly relieved at his interpretation of events.
If she did not belong to Talorc, then her honor was not compromised by the feelings Lachlan stirred in both her body and her heart.
"Come here and let me kiss you and then you may tell me your opinion of the matter."
She shivered to the depths of her being at the promise in his voice. "I think you plan to do more than kiss me."
He wanted to see her naked. He wanted to touch her. By the saints, she craved that touch more than she had hungered after acceptance in her own family.
"Perhaps… then again, perhaps not," he said, mocking her with her own words.
"And perhaps I will let you," she said with more boldness than sense.
She found true joy in his arms and a pleasure that was unimaginable. Once she left the Balmorals, she would never know either again. She decided in that moment to fully experience everything Lachlan would give her.
He had promised not to take her virginity and she would trust him to keep that promise. She was not so naive that she believed women did not engage in the sort of touching he spoke of outside the bond of matrimony. Jolenta had told Emily and Abigail stories of the goings-on at Court. Those tales had shocked and sometimes sickened her, but she did not feel in the least sick at the prospect of doing any and all of the things Jolenta had spoken of and alluded to with Lachlan.
If that made her wanton, then so be it, she would be wanton. Because deep in her heart she knew she would only ever be that way with this one man… a man who thought he was more than a mere human. And looking at him with his wolf's eyes and power radiating from him like a palpable presence, she thought she just might agree.