“I could warm you,” he said as he drew her earlobe between his teeth.
Bronwyn felt a chill run along her arm, a chill that had nothing to do with the wet dress she wore. The sensation frightened her; she didn’t want it. “Please let me go,” she said softly.
Stephen’s head came up quickly, and he looked at her with concern. “You are cold. Take that dress off and you can wear my jacket. Should I build a fire?”
“I’d prefer that you released me and we rode back to the house.”
Reluctantly, Stephen stood her in front of him. “You’re shivering,” he said as he moved his hands along her arms. “You’ll be ill if you don’t get out of that dress.”
She backed away from him. The sodden gown slapped about her legs, the sleeves dragged her arms down.
Stephen gave her a look of disgust. “That damned thing is so heavy you can scarcely walk. Why in the world you women wear such fashions is beyond me. It’s so heavy now I doubt if your horse could carry you.”
Bronwyn straightened her shoulders even though the dress threatened to drag them down again. “Women! It’s you Englishmen who impose these fashions on your women. It is an attempt to keep them immobile since you aren’t men enough to deal with free women. I had this dress made so I wouldn’t shame my clan. The English too often judge a person by her clothes.”
She held the fabric out. “Do you know how much this cost me? I could have purchased a hundred head of cattle for what this one garment cost me. Yet you have ruined it.”
“I? It was your stubbornness that ruined it. Just as now. You stand there shivering because you’d rather freeze than do what I say.”
She gave him a mocking smile. “At least you are not completely stupid. You do understand some things.”
Stephen chuckled. “I understand much m
ore than you imagine.” He removed his jacket and held it out to her. “If you’re so afraid of me, go into the woods and change.”
“Afraid!” Bronwyn snorted and ignored the offered clothing. She walked slowly, kicking the skirt as she moved, to the saddle on the ground. She withdrew a Highland tartan from the attached bag. She didn’t bother looking back at Stephen as she went into the woods, Rab following her.
She had a great deal of difficulty with the catches that ran down the back of the dress. By the time she got to the last one, her skin was nearly blue. She grabbed the dress and pulled it from her shoulders, the last hooks snapping apart. She let the dress fall in a heap at her feet.
The thin linen of her undertunic and the once-stiff petticoat were dyed pink from the burgundy wool. She longed to remove her underwear but didn’t dare with someone like Stephen Montgomery near. At the thought, she looked around her to make sure he wasn’t spying on her, then lifted the petticoat and removed her silk stockings. When she’d removed as much clothing as she dared, she wrapped herself in her plaid and walked back to the stream.
Stephen was nowhere in sight.
“Looking for me?” he asked from behind her.
When she turned, he was grinning at her, her wet dress thrown over his arm. It was obvious he’d hidden and watched her undress.
Her eyes were cold as she stared at him. “You think you’ve won, don’t you? You’re so confident that soon I will be at your feet that you treat me like a toy of yours. I’m not a toy, and most especially, I am not yours. For all your English vanity, I am a Scotswoman and I have some power.”
She turned to where the black mare was tied; then stopped and looked back at him. “What power I have, I will use.” Ignoring his presence, she pulled the tartan up to her knees, grabbed the horse’s mane, and swung onto its back. She kicked it forward, already in a gallop by the time she reached Stephen.
He didn’t try to stop her but mounted his stallion bareback and followed her. He would send someone later for the saddles.
It seemed a long way back to the manor house, and the horse’s sharp backbone hitting him seemed just punishment for his behavior. She was a proud woman, and he had treated her badly. It was just that she did things to him. He looked at her, and he had difficulty thinking. She tried to talk to him, and all he could think about was getting her in bed. Later, he thought, after they were married and he’d bedded her a few times, he’d be able to look at her without his blood boiling.
Bronwyn stood before the mirror in her room. She felt much better now that she’d had a hot bath and some time to think. Stephen Montgomery was not the man to become her husband. If he antagonized her people as he did her, he would be killed instantly, and then the English would come down upon their heads. She’d not marry a man who would surely cause war as well as strife within her clan.
She adjusted her hair again. She’d pulled the top of it back from her forehead, allowing the rest of it to hang freely down her back. A servant girl had brought her freshly cut autumn daisies, and Bronwyn had made a band of these across the back of her head.
Her gown was of emerald-green silk. The trailing sleeves were lined with gray squirrel fur, accenting the gray silk revealed by the part in the front of the bell-shaped skirt.
“I want to look my best,” Bronwyn said, catching a glimpse of Morag in the mirror.
Morag snorted. “I’d like to think ye were dressin’ to please Sir Stephen, but I don’t think so.”
“I will never dress for him!”
“As far as I can tell, the man only wants ye undressed,” Morag mumbled.