The Witch Of Clan Sinclair by Karen Ranney Page A

trembled just a little as she touched his hip.
    His smile faded.
    Silence stretched between them, marked by the soft whir of the mantel clock.
    She gathered up the material of his kilt with one hand. When her fingers touched his bare leg, he felt a current passing between them. Did her fingers scorch his skin or was that only foolishness?
    His eyes never left hers.
    In a second she would touch him, yet he didn’t pull away or caution her.
    She moved her hand, her fingers trailing over leather.
    Her eyes widened.
    So did his smile.
    She jerked her hand back.
    “It’s a truss of a sort,” he said.
    Clasping her hands together, she stared down at his sporran. Covered in rabbit fur, it was adorned with three large tassels, each bearing an identical crest, that of his office.
    “Have you been injured?”
    His laughter swept through the room like a wave.
    “No, but if I didn’t wear one, I’d be bruised.”
    She frowned up at him.
    “I’m large enough that I can’t be swinging about,” he said. “Now, shall we go in to dinner?”
    While she looked a little dazed, he bit back his laughter, took her arm and headed toward the dining room.

 
    Chapter 9

    D ear God in heaven, what had she done?
    She’d touched a man.
    She’d only touched one man in her life. Calvin had been so surprised at her exploration that he’d drawn away. She’d been disappointed and more than a little embarrassed at his reaction. Wasn’t discovery part of love? She’d found out, not too much later, that she was the only one who’d been in love. He’d only felt lust or maybe not even that.
    What did Harrison feel?
    Amusement, she decided, looking at his face. His eyes were dancing and his mouth was pursed. Was he trying not to smile?
    A truss? What on earth did that mean? He was too large to be swinging about?
    Her face warmed.
    If she’d been the innocent she should have been, she wouldn’t have known anything about a man’s anatomy. How, then, did she pretend a virtue she no longer possessed?
    “I’m not a virgin,” she said as they left his library and walked down a wide hallway. The moment the words left her lips, she was horrified. Turning to him, she took a step back, one hand in the air between them.
    Why on earth had she said such an idiotic thing? He didn’t need to know whether or not she was a virgin. That information should be held in reserve for the man she married, if she ever married.
    “Just in case you thought I should be shocked,” she said, floundering for some reasonable explanation for her verbal excess.
    “That’s good to know,” he said, the smile finally escaping from its mooring to make his face even more attractive. “I’m not a virgin, either.”
    She nodded, so humiliated she would have been grateful if the floor opened up beneath her. Instead, it stayed firm as rock.
    At the dining room door he stepped aside so she could precede him.
    What was she doing even thinking of eating a meal with Harrison? But here she was, being led to a chair like she had no will of her own. Maybe that, too, was because of him.
    The dining room was as richly appointed as the rest of the Lord Provost’s home. A long mahogany table sat atop a patterned carpet of emerald and pale green. Two sideboards sat on either end of the room with a fireplace occupying a third wall, the black mantel elaborately carved with thistles and berries.
    She only had a moment to note the plaster frieze on the ceiling and the lovely painting of a bowl of fruit before he pulled out the chair for her.
    She sat, bemused.
    He was a single man. She was a single woman. The very fact she was here, in his home, was untoward behavior. Now she was eating a meal with him? What would James think? He was certain to tell Macrath about this episode, if not Robert.
    “You look as terrified as a rabbit in a trap, Miss Sinclair.”
    She blinked over at him. Not one word came to mind. Perhaps that was for the best, because the door on the far wall swung open and a