The Border Trilogy Read Online Free

through her body, the light in the chamber dimmed. Something or someone standing in the tall, arched window had blocked the moonlight.
    Though her eyes were open, she dared not move her head to look directly at the intruder lest her movement startle him, for her first conjecture was that a thief had decided to take advantage of her slumber to search for booty among her belongings. But even as the thought stirred, she wondered what thief would dare attempt to enter a window fully thirty feet and more above the ground by way of a snow-crusted balcony.
    Just then the intruder moved past the bed, and through quickly lowered lashes she saw his outline clearly against the glow of the dying fire. She could not mistake that tall figure, those broad, muscular shoulders, that easy stride. Indeed, he moved toward her now as though he were in his own chamber rather than hers. When he paused beside her, she shut her eyes more tightly, then had all she could do to keep from holding her breath. She breathed slowly and deeply, hoping that if he thought she was asleep he would go away again.
    She sensed that he had moved nearer, then heard a rattling sound from the candle table near the head of the bed. He moved away again, and opening her eyes to slits, she saw him kneel before the dying fire. He gave it a stir with a kindling stick from the basket on the hearth, then tossed the stick onto the leaping flames and lit the candle he had taken from the table. Standing again, he turned more quickly than she had anticipated, and when she saw that he was grinning at her, she turned onto her back and sat up, clutching the bedclothes to her chin.
    “Get out,” she said, pleased that the words came clearly, even calmly, from her tightening throat.
    His grin widened. “Ah, lassie, you mustn’t be angry. You ought to have had more faith in me. I’ll grant I was a long time coming, but you knew my business was urgent. ’Twas right cruel to lock your door against me.”
    “I don’t want you here,” she said carefully. “I never did. You merely thought to take advantage of my innocence.”
    He chuckled. “There was no mistaking your invitation, sweetheart. And as for believing you had really gone to sleep, I am not such a fool. I’d have been angrier had I not chanced to recall both your uncle’s fancy for underscoring his windows with balconies and the highlander’s unnatural love of night air. To leave one’s shutters ajar is a dangerous and unhealthy practice, as all civilized persons are aware, but I was right glad to recall that misguided highland habit this night.”
    “There is nothing misguided about it,” she informed him tartly. “’Tis merely that men who learn to make do with naught but a plaid betwixt themselves and the elements are a hardier lot than you weak-kneed borderers.” Nevertheless, she told herself, the habit could indeed prove dangerous, as she had just discovered. When Douglas moved nearer the bed, she wriggled back away from him. “What are you doing?”
    “What I came to do,” he said. When she squirmed to the back of the bed, he set the candlestick on the candle table, placed both hands on his slim hips, and looked down at her with a frown. “This game becomes wearisome, lass. I’ve proved my desire for you by risking my hide in a leap of at least a dozen feet from one damned balcony to another—”
    “They are not so far apart as that,” she said, in a voice that was beginning to fail her at last. “Not more than four feet, maybe six at the most.”
    “I am persuaded they are twelve feet apart at the very least,” he said firmly. “And the parapets are blanketed with icy snow. Therefore, I have risked life and limb. Moreover, I have apologized for tarrying, though it was not my fault and it is not my habit to apologize. So, come now, sweetheart, comfort me.” With these words, he put one knee upon the bed and leaned toward her, his right hand outstretched.
    “No!” Shrinking away from him, she