He smiled down at her, his eyes warm with something she did not understand. "You are no wanton."

"I am. I know it, though I appreciate you trying to comfort me." She sighed. "Perhaps marriage to Talorc will not be so bad after all."

Lachlan went absolutely rigid and the hand rubbing her back now grabbed her shoulder with bruising bite. "What the hell are you talking about?"

She had no idea why he was so upset. Surely she was the one who should feel out of sorts for being forced to see a side of her nature she would rather have remained in ignorance of. "If I am wanton, I will find some solace in the marriage bed."

"You are not a wanton. Your response was for me, not the other laird." He looked ready to do violence.

But she did not feel any fear in the circle of his arms. Still, she had allowed the liberty of his holding her long enough. She needed to start acting like a lady if she wanted to believe herself to be one. She would never live up to Sybil's exacting standards, but Emily had her own code of honor and would not compromise it further.

She pushed out of his arms and indicated the door with the sweep of her hand. "You have other, more important matters to attend to, I am sure."

"You do not dismiss your laird. You wait for him to dismiss you," he growled, as if instructing a child in basic manners.

She rolled her eyes. "I cannot go anywhere, therefore I cannot be dismissed."

"Which means you wait for me to leave."

She bit back another frustrated sigh. No doubt he was right, but she wanted him to leave now. "I wish for a moment of privacy."

"You dare to order me?"

"I am not trying to offend you. I did not order you, if you will remember… but merely spoke my opinion. That is allowed, surely?"

"I did not ask for it."

"I must always wait until you do?"

His jaw looked hewn from granite and she wondered at his apparent anger.

"Lachlan?" she prompted in a soft voice.

"You do not have to wait for me to ask for your opinion to give it… in private," he said as if making a major concession.

"Thank you," she replied, though she personally thought she should not need his permission to do so. She was smart enough to refrain from saying so, however. No doubt Sybil would have agreed with him. She had certainly never encouraged Emily to speak her mind. "Well…"

"What?"

"Are you going to leave now?" she asked, trying not to sound overeager and offend him again.

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"There is something I must do first."

Chapter 10

"What?" Emily asked.

Her eyes were wide with shock when Lachlan's lips closed over hers. Which would have been amusing if he wasn't aching so much from having her tell him how much she had enjoyed his kisses. Had the lass really not expected him to claim her lips again after that?

But to say in almost the same breath she thought she would respond to Talorc the same way had brought Lachlan's beast raging to the surface with more than desire fueling his blood. He'd wanted to rip the other laird's throat out for nothing more than the image of Emily sharing her body and her passion with the other man.

Her mouth was open on a gasp and Lachlan took immediate advantage, delving inside with his tongue to sip at the nectar waiting for him there. How could she believe he did not enjoy her like this? He had needed to test her yesterday, to see if she was as innocent as she claimed, but he'd never said he did not enjoy it.

She didn't fight him, but hung suspended in his grasp as he tasted her mouth and imprinted his wolf senses with both her flavor and feminine scent.

He lifted his mouth only a breath from hers. "There is no shame in this, Emily. I want your response. I crave it."

"Is it another test?" she asked, vulnerability shimmering in her violet eyes.

"No."

"Then why?"

"Because I want to. Because I want you."

"Oh. But I don't want to be a wanton."

"I won't let you become one," he promised.

He connected their mouths again, exultation roaring through him when she made a small sound and melted into him.

He was a fool for kissing her again, for tempting his beast as well as his manly desire.

But there was something so perfect about this woman. She was destined for his rival, but she smelled right, she felt right, and she tasted like ambrosia. His beast howled with the need to come out and claim her. His bones ached with the desire to make the change, to show her his power. It was insane and he could not give in to it, but his body shook with the craving and a growl her human ear could never hear rumbled low in his chest.

If he did not do something quickly, he was going to lay her on her bed, strip her clothes from her body and make love to her until neither of them could walk. Not only was she too fragile for such handling, but she was human and she was English. She would believe that if he took her completely, that it would mean they had to marry. Hell… even the Sinclair Chrechte saw mating that way.

He shoved her away from him and then grabbed her again before she fell on her backside. "We will have our first swimming lesson now."

He only hoped that the cold water of the loch would restore some of his self-control.

Emily swayed in his grasp and blinked at him, her purple gaze hazy with passion. "I really am a strumpet."

He glared at her. "Liking my kisses does not make you a whore."

"It does when I am promised to another."

"No, it does not."

"There are those in the Church who teach woman is evil, a temptress. I feel like a temptress now." She blinked up at him, her lips parted, her breasts rising and falling with each rapid breath she took, their turgid peaks pressing against her bodice. "I want you to kiss me again. Surely that means I am depraved."

"It means I have roused your passion, 'Tis good to know." He placed his fingertip over the quickly beating pulse in her neck. Her blood was rushing for him and for no other. That did not make her a wanton; it made her more alluring than any other woman he had known. "I am tempted by your sweet innocence, but that does not make you a temptress. I kissed you, English, not the other way around."

"That is true. Does that mean you are the seducer?"

"You have not yet been seduced."

"I haven't?"

"Am I buried between your thighs?"

She gasped. "No!"

"Then you have not been seduced."

"Oh…" She chewed on her bottom lip.

"You would not respond so easily to another man."

"Are you certain of that?"

"Yes."

"You are very arrogant," she said speculatively. "Perhaps it is only that arrogance speaking now."

She had no idea what the drought of her being attracted to another man did to him, how angry it made him. But he could tell from the way she spoke that she was not trying to make him jealous. She was genuinely worried about her morals.

It would have been bloody amusing if she didn't look so upset.

"Did you ever want to touch one of your father's soldiers?" he asked, convinced the answer had to be a negative for her to be as wholly innocent as she was.

"No." She clasped her hands, as if pleased by that reminder. "And they were not all surly men. Some were quite pleasing to look at, but I did not feel the things I do when I am near you." Then her expression took on a worried cast again. "Of course I did not spend much time with them. It would not have been proper."

"You rode on Angus's horse with him. Did his nearness affect you the way mine does? You smiled at him," he reminded her. It rankled, that smile. For she'd given his soldiers many such looks while ignoring him completely the evening before.

"That was to confuse him, but no… I did not want to get nearer to him as I did when I rode with you."

Everything she did confused Lachlan, but he wasn't about to admit that sorry truth. The woman was a puzzle, but an appealing one. "Are you sure you had no desire to have Ulf kiss you, or one of my other soldiers?" he teased, knowing the answer to that question with certainty.

She grimaced, distaste at the idea written all over her expressive features. "Of course not."

"Then how can you believe yourself to be a woman of misplaced morals?"

"It is not my morals I'm concerned with, but my urges. It is you," she stated with conviction. "I must stay away from you. You bring out the worst in me."

He did not agree. "I bring out the woman in you."

"I am supposed to be a lady, but you give me impure thoughts. It is wrong."

He pulled her close into his body so she could feel the evidence of his desire, the result of his own thoughts where she was concerned. "It is hot."

"Hot?" she asked, her voice squeaking with alarm.

"Very hot." He rubbed himself against her and groaned. "And now, unless you want me to act on those impure thoughts, we need to cool down."

"How can you act on my thoughts? You don't know what they are."

"Don't I?"

"Do you mean to say you have the same ones?"

That made him smile. "You are too innocent to have my thoughts."

"But you said—"

"That it is time for your swimming lesson."

"I am not taking my tunic off. It would not be decent." She couldn't believe he had suggested such a thing.

"You cannot learn to swim wearing it."

"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.