Read Online Highland Heat by Jennifer Haymore - Free Book Online

sat within ten feet of them, so she struggled to keep the conversation light. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
    “Aye, six sisters. All of ’em younger than me.”
    She gaped at him.
“Six sisters?”
    He seemed to enjoy her surprise, his eyes dancing merrily. “Aye.”
    “And no brothers?”
    “Nay, I was the only son.”
    “My goodness. What a large family. Was your farmhouse very large?”
    “Four rooms.”
    She nearly spit out her tongue. That alone was testament to the difference in their classes. A family of nine in a four-room house. Norsey House, her father’s country estate in Kent, had over thirty rooms. And their family consisted only of her, Claire, and their father…and technically the major, though he was rarely at home.
    That didn’t include their spacious London townhouse, which had eleven rooms.
    “How did you all sleep?” she wondered aloud. “You must’ve been piled atop one another!”
    “Oh, nay. ’Twasn’t so bad. I shared a room with my sisters, but never all of them at once. There was always a babe with my mother, and by the time the wee twins, Anna and Maggie, were born, I was thirteen and wasna home much, because my da had sent me to school in Inverness.”
    “You sound very fond of your family,” Grace observed, using a damp cloth to carefully cleanse the wound.
    “Aye, I am. I miss them. Haven’t laid eyes on my family for a long time.”
    She nodded gravely.
    “Two of my sisters are married. Four still live with my parents at home, and my mum spends most days tryin’ to marry ’em off.”
    Grace smiled as she began to twine a fresh bandage around Duncan’s arm. “I can only imagine. But they must be lovely girls if…” She broke off quickly. She’d been going to say,
if they possess your good looks.
But that would be…inappropriate.
    She gazed at him for a moment. He was beautiful. Her lips still tingled from their kiss three days ago. She’d like to kiss those lush lips again. She’d like to touch him, to feel that hard, muscular body.
    He gave her a quizzical look. “If?”
    Oh, now she’d trapped herself. What could she say? She just shook her head and smiled, concentrating on the finishing touches of the bandage.
    When she was done, she sat back on her heels, her cheeks tingling with heat, unable to look at him. She’d never felt so comfortable in a man’s presence before. She’d never felt so
unsettled
in a man’s presence, either.
    Duncan was different from any other male she’d ever encountered. He did something to her, something that made her feel…well, simply delicious.
    His finger pressed beneath her chin, forcing her to look up at him. He leaned forward to whisper into her ear. “I want to kiss you again.”
    She jolted back in surprise, but he held her firm. “Come with me,” he said quietly. “Tell your sister you’re takin’ some air.”
    Looking at him wide-eyed, she nodded.
    They rose and headed toward the exit. As she passed by Claire, who was doctoring Lieutenant Ross’s torso—he’d been clipped by a bullet in the waist—she murmured, “I’m going out to take some air.”
    Claire nodded but hardly spared her a glance, so intent was her focus on the red-haired lieutenant. Claire possessed a rather odd fascination with the art of doctoring, so it didn’t surprise Grace that she had taken the responsibility for treating the men’s various ailments. Except for Duncan’s injury. Besides helping Grace fashion him a new sling, Claire had left his recovery entirely in Grace’s hands.
    But as they passed the major, he scowled at them, his eyes narrowed at Duncan. Grace tried not to flinch away from the man. It seemed so strange to her that a man who at times didn’t seem to care one way or another about his own wife would give a fig about her interactions with one of his men.
    But there was male logic for you, she thought. In some warped way, he felt it was his duty to protect his sister-in-law’s virtue.
    “I need ye