Page 36 of Taken By the Highland Villain

Valerie winced. “One moment, ye say ye’ll never claim me, and the next ye say nay one else will either. I only wish it could be true, but we both ken it cannae be.”

Jude flinched at her tone, his expression twisting from anger to remorse. “Lass, dinnae look at me like that. If I could…”

All at once, she was too angry and too heartsick to care what he might say. The words she’d fought to hold back for so long—ever since her father had first forced her into marriage years ago—burst out of her.

“Ye think I want to be claimed by ye or any other man?”

She stalked forward, glaring at him, even as her eyes pricked and stung with tears that she refused to shed.

“Everyone expects me to settle down with a man, to become some laird’s obedient wife—do ye have the faintest idea howIfeel about it? I sailed with my faither on the high seas.Icommanded his men, second only to my faither himself.Inegotiated our trades and fought alongside the men.”

She sucked in a ragged breath, beyond caring how she sounded as the words continued to pour out of her.

“Isupported my sisters after our parents died, and maintained the connections with the men who were loyal to us so we wouldnae be defenseless!”

Jude’s expression was full of amazement, as if she’d hit him with the poker standing next to the hearth.

Valerie took a deep breath and attempted to rein in some of her turmoil, though nothing could quell the bitterness that filled her, all the sharper for the bliss of moments ago.

“All of that, I did, but now I’m expected to shackle myself to… to…”

She couldn’t say it. She didn’t want to say it. The words hung unspoken, thick and choking her until she shoved them away and sought new, more palatable ones.

“Ye say I’m yers for as long as I’m here? Well enough. But if that’s the case, then ye’d better resign yerself, My Laird.”

Jude blinked, clearly taken aback by the sudden change in her tone and topic. “Resign myself?”

“Aye. Because if I’m here and I’m yers, then I am most assuredly changing yer curtains.”

With that, she shoved past him and stalked to the door, her gut still churning with the potent mix of emotions that filled her. Longing, hurt, anger, anguish, and a sort of aching loneliness that made her stomach clench—all of them churned inside her, turning what had been a brief, pleasurable encounter into a bittersweet memory that made her want to curl into a ball and hide from the world.

Focus, Valerie. Curtains.

Curtains were safe. She could focus on the curtains and not on the strong, handsome man behind her.

The handle gave way easily under her fingers, opening with a soft click as if it had never been locked in the first place. She jerked the door open and walked through it, but not before throwing over her shoulder, “And when I say that, My Laird, I meanallof the curtains.”

CHAPTER 16

The morning sunshining through his curtains—Jude hadn’t fully shut them—woke him from a troubled sleep. He rose, stretched to ease the strain in his crippled leg, then went to the window, frowning out at the sunlit gardens and the moors beyond the wall.

He and Valerie hadn’t spoken a single word to each other after their encounter in the gallery. When she hadn’t come back after leaving, he’d eventually retired to his study under the pretense of working.

There was certainly plenty to be done, but he’d managed little, too busy turning over the events of the gallery and the days before in his mind.

He’d eaten supper in his study, then retired to his room, his thoughts still churning until he’d managed to drift off to a fitful slumber.

Valerie was promised to another man. She was also, based on her outburst after their pleasurable encounter, not particularly interested in marriage of any kind. And he…

He had failed his family once, and then he had been whole and healthy. Now, he dared not risk it.

A knock on his door made him turn away from the window, and he made his way across to admit Craig.

“What do ye need?”

One corner of Craig’s mouth quirked upward. “I was plannin’ to ask ye that, My Laird. Ye ken I’m escorting Miss Blackwood to Lady MacAllister’s today, and I wanted to see if there were any other errands ye wanted me to run while I was gone.”

Valerie was going to see Lady MacAllister.