Secrets to Seducing a Scot by Michelle Marcos Page A

through a door-shaped crack in the moldy beams. A sweep of his candle revealed a hook. He put a finger through it and pulled.
    Light burst in upon them from the opposite side. They now stood behind six shelves aching with books, and they could see over them into the room.
    “It’s the library!” she breathed. “But I’ve never seen this doorway before.” She picked up one of the books and turned it over in her hands. “How does one get through these shelves?”
    He looked all around. “There has to be a hinge …” He pushed against the frame of the bookshelf, and it swung forward. The three of them stepped through the opening and found themselves standing in Lord Askey’s library.
    He swung into place the hinged door that doubled as the back panel of the oak bookshelves. Then he swung the hinged bookcase onto it. The doorway disappeared, leaving only what appeared to be a static bookshelf.
    “Ingenious,” he muttered, lifting the real books off the shelf. “No one would have suspected a thing.”
    “I wonder if Papa knows about this?” asked Zoe,
pulling open the bookshelf-door. “Oh, I can’t wait to tell my friend Rebecca!”
    “I must ask ye not to tell anyone outside this household about this hidden passageway,” said Malcolm gently. “I myself will show it to yer father and the ambassador. The fewer people that know, the safer Miss Marsh will be.”
    Zoe smiled at him, her brown eyes turning their full allure his way. “If you insist.”
    Malcolm wagged a warning finger at Serena. “And don’t ye be telling the world about it, either.”
    Serena bristled at the change in his demeanor with her. It was bad enough that there was no one in the whole of Scotland she held in any confidence. Now she was forced into an adversarial relationship with a man she didn’t want to like … but did.
    She adjusted her shawl around her shoulders and walked to the real door out of the library. “Get accustomed to stepping through that bookshelf to reach your bedchamber, for you won’t be going through my bedroom door.”

THIRTEEN
    The clock downstairs chimed nine, reverberating through the empty house.
    Serena put down the hairbrush. Gazing out of the window that was behind her mirrored dressing table, she sighed audibly. Light still filled the sky even though practically the entire household had gone to bed. This was what the Scots called “the gloaming”—the twilight time between sunset and dark. Outside, the sky had no moon and no stars—none of the beauty that night brings—but the sun had long since departed. It was a strange purgatory. All was suspended as day had given up, but nightfall refused to come.
    Suspended. That was how she felt, too. Gone was the familiar life she had so enjoyed and reveled in, and still to come was … she knew not what.
    A hollow knock startled her. It came from the wall at the foot of her bed, where her wardrobe had once been. On the other side of the larkspur wallpaper was the place Malcolm had made his bedchamber.
    “Come in,” she said on instinct, even though she was only in her dressing gown.
    The secret door opened, and there stood Malcolm holding a candlestick aloft. “I’ve come to check ye’re all right.”
    Despite their tense exchanges, she found herself glad
to see him. “Quite well, thank you.” She said it before she could stop herself: “Would you care to come in?”
    “Aye.”
    He had to dip his head to be able to walk through the six-foot doorway. But once he was inside, the candlelight from her bedside table brought a completely new look to his face. His weathered features softened, and his black hair came alive in shades of blue. He had on a cream-colored linen shirt and black trousers, but there was no cravat or coat on him. Also gone were his gloves. But more interesting were his eyes, which danced down her peignoir before riveting themselves to the floor. “I’ll just check on the door. To make sure it’s been locked properly.”
    His