“I was watching out for you.”

Martha was glad he straightened up and turned away because she was quite sure that, in that moment, her expression did betray the feelings his words provoked. There was some sort of alchemy at work when Fraser was close to her. With just a word or a look, he could make her insides tremble. Take care, Martha. He was only watching for you the same way he would watch out for a maiden aunt or other infirm spinster foolish enough to venture out in the snow. This is not about you. This is because—Scotsman or not—he is a kind and chivalrous man.

As she lectured herself sternly, the glow of the firelight flickered across Fraser’s rugged profile. Seeming to become aware of her scrutiny, he turned and smiled at her. The room lit up, as if the snow clouds had finally parted to allow the sunlight to peek through. Oh, dear, Martha thought. Her self-imposed lecture hadn’t worked. As she returned his smile, her heart gave a funny, hopeful little flutter.

Fraser decided to deal with the increasing turmoil of his emotions by keeping busy. Under yellow-grey skies, he chopped and stacked enough wood to keep a small village stocked for the whole winter. He worked until his biceps and shoulder muscles ached in protest and the sweat soaked his hair and ran down his back. Even when he had to remove his shirt because it clung to him like a damp second skin, he carried on mindlessly raising and lowering the axe.

He was not a barbarian. When he fought, it was for honourable reasons. For Scotland and its rightful king. Martha had likened him to a reiver, and those words she had thrown at him so cruelly cut him to the core. Reivers were thieves, murderers and rapists. When Fraser killed, he killed in battle. He faced his enemy, sword in hand. He would not condone reiving in the name of the Jacobite cause. His men knew his rules, and the punishment for breaking the Lachlan code was death. Do no harm to innocents, that was Fraser’s way.

His way was honourable. He had never taken a woman against her will, and he never would. What if the woman was willing, yet with absolutely no experience of men? Wouldn’t it be almost as bad as forcing her if a man—any man—charmed his way into her bed? It would certainly not be honourable. The axe blows rained down harder and woodchips flew wildly around him.

Fraser couldn’t think of a single reason to be attracted to Martha Wantage. At the same time, all he could think about was bedding her. It had become an obsession. There must be something wrong with him. There was nothing about her that should appeal to him. He liked women who were full-bosomed, curvaceous and softly welcoming to their man. Martha’s straight, slender figure ought to repulse him. So why had his dreams been filled just lately with images of his trembling hands loosening her bodice before he took one of her small, high breasts completely into his mouth?

“What on earth are you doing?” For a second he thought Martha’s question was part of his fantasy. Then, looking up, he saw her framed in the kitchen doorway. Darkness was descending, and with it a new, light fall of snow had commenced.

“I thought I told you not to get up?”

“I was worried. You’ve been out here for hours.” Her feet were bare and she was shivering slightly. Picking up his discarded shirt, he used it to wipe some of the sweat from his face and chest and came over to her. As he paused beside her in the doorway, she looked shyly up at him. “Please don’t skelp my backside.”

She had no idea what those words did to him. If she had, she would not have dared utter them. An image of doing just that until she cried out for mercy—and more—made the blood pound in his temples and in other, more basic parts of his anatomy. He felt the frown on his face deepen. Martha’s answering expression was questioning, and he glimpsed the sudden nervousness that darkened the depths of her eyes. Nevertheless, she attempted a smile. She had a particularly beautiful smile, made more so because of its rarity. He experienced a quite urgent desire to take her in his arms and lick the fine powdering of snow from her nose, her cheeks and her lips. His voice was gruff when he replied. “’Twould be no less than you deserve, thrawn lassie.”

She made a noise that was midway between a gulp and a laugh, and he decided he had never heard a sound so sweet and infectious. Bloody hell, he had this bad. It just wasn’t healthy for a man to be cooped up in such close proximity with a woman—any woman, even one as prim and plain as Martha Wantage—without having any outlet for his natural desires. Perhaps that was all it was. He wanted to drive all of that starched-up primness out of her in the most shocking way he could imagine. He’d been without a woman for too long. This was not about Martha, this was simply nature telling him to do what his body needed.

Just as he had convinced himself, an annoying little voice of doubt piped up in his mind. If that were truly the case, why was it that he could look at Rosie, in all her dusky loveliness, with appreciation but without any of the thrumming urgency this shy, poker-backed virgin aroused in him? Was it because he sensed that, beneath those tightly laced, high-necked bodices she wore, there was something more than decorum? Drawing his mind determinedly away from such dangerous territory, he decided the reason for his aberrant cravings didn’t matter. He would fight them anyway. He wasn’t an animal.

“Ye’ll freeze to death, ye wee, foolish wench,” he murmured, scooping her up into his arms. He didn’t know what he had done to give rise to the sudden rush of embarrassment that quite obviously seized her as he held her against his naked chest and carried her back to the fireside, but he watched in fascination as pink colour stained her cheeks. The little indrawn breath she took lodged itself somewhere deep inside his chest. He lowered her onto the settle, covering her legs with a woollen blanket. Martha whispered a word of thanks. Her eyelids fluttered, and that fascinating little pulse at the tender base of her throat drew and held his attention. It was as he had feared all along. He was entranced by her, caught in the grip of an attraction as intense as it was unexpected. And that was going to be so much harder to fight than mere lust.

Chapter Seven

“I’ve brought your young scamp to you,” Jack said, entering the parlour of the old dower house with a shamefaced Harry in his wake. Martha, whose ankle was almost healed, was conscious of a moment’s annoyance at the interruption. She had become used to a peaceful existence that consisted of just her and Fraser. Ashamed of such an uncharitable thought, she rose to greet her visitors.

“Ye look more rightful.” Fraser studied Jack’s face. “But too peely-wally for my liking.”

“What does that mean?” Harry asked.

“It means ‘pale’,” Martha said, with a warning look at Fraser. “We use these Scots sayings all the time up in Northumberland. Don’t we, brother dear?”

“What’s that?” He directed a confused frown at her. Then her meaning dawned on him and he grinned ruefully. “Oh, aye. Indeed we do.”

“Jack said you are a fisherman.” Harry looked up at Fraser with a touch of bashfulness.

“I am that, lad. But ye’ll no be catching much at this time of year.” Harry’s eager face fell with disappointment. “Unless ’tis a bit of carp you fancy? I reckon we could take our rods out and try our luck wi’ that?”

“You could, of course,” Martha said firmly. “Once Harry has completed the Latin exercises Mr. Dewson has set for him.”

“I don’t understand them,” Harry said, his expression a mixture of defiance and embarrassment. He held out the book that the parson had provided and showed Martha his scrawled attempts to complete the work. “Jack said I should come clean and confess.”

Martha bit her lip. She really didn’t have enough knowledge of Latin to help Harry, and Mr. Dewson himself had gone away for two months. Mr. Delacourt knew the language, of course, but he was so vague he would never be able to concentrate for long enough to explain even the basics to his son.