Highland Champion by Hannah Howell Page B

whose names dinnae begin with ‘m’?” she asked, surprised she could speak at all with her jaws so tense and her teeth clenched.
    “Weel, aye. A few.” He watched Keira closely as he said, “Anne, Brenda, Clara, Deirdre, Ellen, Fiona, Gay, Helen, Ilsa, Jolene, Katie—”
    “The whole alphabet? Ye have rutted your way through the whole cursed alphabet?”
    Here it comes, he thought, and prepared himself to remain calm and reasonable in the face of the insults he suspected he would soon have to endure. “Weel, nay. I dinnae think I ken a lass whose name begins with an ‘x’ or a ‘z’.”
    “Ye are a lecherous swine, sir,” she hissed. “Oh, I should have kenned it e’en before that fool woman arrived. Any mon as bonnie as ye are was certain to be one who spent more time with his breeches down than up and laced tight.”
    “I wouldnae say that,” began Liam.
    Now that she had begun to speak, Keira was unable to stop herself. “Nay, ye wouldnae, would ye? Just like all men, ye think it great fun and sport, aye, and your right to rut yourself blind. Ye have no more control than a stoat!”
    Keira leapt to her feet and started to pace, but it did not stop the words frompouring out of her mouth. She was a little appalled at some of the things she was saying, but she could not seem to shut herself up. Every thought she had had since Lady Maude had come banging on the cottage door was coming out of her mouth. They had obviously festered in her mind and heart long enough.
    “Men can be such hypocrites,” she said after a lengthy diatribe that maligned men’s morals and intelligence. “They demand chastity, purity, and abject faithfulness in their women whilst they try to slip beneath the petticoats of every maid, wife, and widow they can find. Men would rut with a hole in the ground!”
    Shock that she had actually said such a crude thing broke through the red haze of fury that had taken control of her mind and tongue. There was a choked sound behind her, and Keira blushed. When she felt Liam’s hands rest upon her shoulders, she only briefly tensed against his effort to turn her around. The moment she was facing him, she rested her forehead against his chest. Not only had she said a lot of things she should not have, but she also did not feel all that much better for having said them. Worse, she greatly feared she had revealed far too much about what she felt for this man.
    Liam grinned at the top of her head. The lass had a true skill for ranting. Although she had directed most of her sharp, scathing remarks at men in general, he knew they were meant for him. Some of them had definitely left a bruise. Although he was willing to accept the charge that he had been less than temperate, he had to wonder how she could think he, or any other man, could be as licentious as she imagined.
    “A hole in the ground?” he murmured and laughed softly when she flinched. “I have ne’er done that.”
    “Oh, hush,” she said, embarrassed right down to her toes. “I cannae believe I said that.”
    “Ye said a lot of things.”
    Since she could not clearly recall everything she had said, and did not truly want to, Keira just nodded. “I let myself believe ye were better than most,” she muttered.
    That hurt, but Liam decided it was for the best if her illusions were muddied a little. It would be impossible to live up to an ideal. He wanted her to know him and want him despite his faults. If she was going to be disillusioned, better now than later, after he had claimed her.
    “Lass, men start looking about for a willing woman at a young age, ere their beards e’en grow noticeable.”
    “That doesnae make it right.” Keira winced, afraid she sounded annoyingly pious and self-righteous.
    “Nay, it doesnae, but there are women aplenty who are willing to scratch that itch.”
    “And ye are an extraordinarily itchy mon, is that it?”
    “Mayhap, though I doubt any mon could be as, er, itchy as ye were implying, not