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“What do you think you’re doing?” she shrieked, throwing the covers off her and leaping from the bed.

At the sound of her panicked voice, the laird lifted his head, but appeared unperturbed. He did stand when she came flying toward him, her hand outstretched, trying to grab the book from his grasp.

“Give that back. You have no right to look through my personal belongings.”

But each time Katherine went to grab it, he twisted away from her so she could not reach her precious book. More annoying was the fact that he was smirking at her as she made attempt after attempt to grab it from him.

“Yer book o’ secrets, I see.” He grinned.

“What is in there is none of your business,” she barked, but by his knowing expression, it was clear he had already read what she wanted to keep from him.

“Och, but we are tae be married, Lady de Beaumont. What is yers is mine and what is mine is yers.”

“I am entitled to my privacy,” she panted, still reaching for the book but failing miserably.

It was only a few seconds later, that the smile fell from the laird’s face and his eyes lowered to the rest of her body. A dark, smoldering look came over him, and suddenly, Katherine looked down at herself, realizing that all this time, she was still dressed in a very sheer nightgown.

“Oh, god,” she cried, turning and running back to the bed.

Swiftly lifting a shawl that lay at the foot of it, she wrapped it hurriedly about herself, a blooming heat rushing to her cheeks.

“You should leave,” she said, trying in her embarrassment to sound forceful.

“Och, will ye calm yersel’, lass. Dae ye think I’ve never seen a naked woman ‘afore?”

Katherine was appalled at his words, for his gruff and abrupt manner was a far cry from the more formal, courtly language of the men she had conversed with over the years.

“That is hardly a thing you ought to say to a lady,” she replied. “Especially not the woman you’re going to marry.”

He shook his head. “Ye bloody English. Ye have a rule fer everything.”

But even as he spoke, he tossed her book on the bed and turned towards the door. Katherine decided to remain silent for once. If she did not engage, perhaps the beastly man would go and leave her be.

After yanking the door wide open, he glanced over his shoulder and spoke to her in a polite English accent, clearly mocking her. “Breakfast will be served in the dining room, me lady.” He then smirked and closed the door behind him.

“Of all the arrogant, ignorant, pigheaded…” she fumed, still glaring at the door.

Katherine then turned and lifted her book. Thumbing through it, she arrived at the page with her list of sins. Heat rushed to her cheeks once more, for she was certain her soon-to-be husband had raked his eyes over those words.

He probably thinks you are a complete hypocrite. There you are with a list such as that, and then having the nerve to tell him how he ought to speak to you.

“Then he ought not to have put his nose where it does not belong, ought he?” she said, answering herself out loud.“Besides, the way he speaks to me and what I have written can hardly be correlated. These are my private thoughts. It does not give him the right to be such a brute.”

Katherine dressed and made her way downstairs, but though she remembered which way she had come from the dungeon last night, she had no idea where the dining room might be.

As a maid came toward her, Katherine said, “Excuse me.”

“Good morning, me lady,” the maid replied, bowing towards her.

Feeling a little taken aback at such deference, particularly from a person who had not yet met her, Katherine floundered for a second. “You know who I am?”

“O’ course, me lady. The whole castle is excited that ye are here. It is a wonderful thing that the laird is tae marry. And if I may say so, me lady, yer beauty is beyond comparison.”

It was becoming very obvious that everyone else in the castle was, in contrast to the laird, quite delightful.

“Thank you.” Katherine smiled a reply. “I wonder if you could direct me to the dining room?”

“O’ course, me lady.”