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replied, his tones clipped. “I told Hepburn if he met my demands, no harm would come to her.”
    “Ah, but ye promised to return her unharmed, not unfooked.” Emma was still puzzling over the unfamiliar term when Sinclair’s companion chuckled. “’Twould be the ultimate revenge, wouldn’t it? Sending her back to the auld buzzard with a Sinclair bastard in her belly?”
    Emma’s blood froze in her veins as the full import of the man’s words sank in. She might still be an innocent but she was no fool. If Sinclair decided to use her tender young body to slake his appetite for revenge, there would be little she could do to stop him. No one would heed her desperate struggles or her pleas for mercy. Judging by what his companion hadjust said, his men were more likely to gather around and cheer him on than rush to her rescue.
    Emma shuddered, remembering anew the dreadful things she had said to him. Since she was the one who had boldly professed her eagerness to take a strapping young lover as soon as the earl would allow it, he might even be able to convince himself that she would welcome his advances.
    She held her breath, waiting for Sinclair to deny his man’s words, to rebuke his companion for suggesting something so abominable. But the taut silence remained unbroken except for the cheery crackle and snap of the fire. Though her eyes were still squeezed tightly shut, she could almost see him sitting there before the fire, his regal cheekbones shadowed by its leaping flames as he weighed the wisdom of his man’s counsel.
    No longer able to bear the suspense, she dared a furtive glance over her shoulder. Sinclair was sitting with his back to her, facing the fire and blocking her view of the other man. His broad shoulders and back looked even more imposing from this angle.
    She had no intention of just lying there and waiting for his shadow to fall over her, blocking out the moonlight and covering her in darkness.
    As she eased back a corner of the blanket, his velvet-edged warning echoed through her mind:
If you run, I’ll have to put my hands on you…
    She rolled soundlessly out of the bedroll.
    If Jamie Sinclair wanted to put his hands on her, he would have to catch her first.
    J AMIE GLARED AT HIS cousin over the leaping flames of the campfire. Their hellish glow only emphasized the devilish sparkle of Bon’s black eyes and the impish arch of his thin, dark brows.
    Bon was one of the few men who could bear up under Jamie’s most fierce glower. He’d had ample practice, both when they were lads running wild over the grounds of the Sinclair stronghold together and during the half dozen or so years that they’d been riding against the Hepburn and his men. The only time they’d been separated was during those long, bleak terms Jamie had spent at St. Andrews.
    If Jamie hadn’t known that Bon was deliberately needling him, he would have lunged across the fire and boxed his pointy ears just as he had so many times as a boy. More often than not, the two of them would end up rolling in the dirt, pummeling each other bloody until someone—usually Bon’s mother, God rest her long-suffering soul, or Jamie’s grandfather—dragged them apart by their collars and gave them each a sound shaking.
    Their brawling had tapered off when Jamie had turned fourteen and rapidly gained eight inches inheight and two stone in weight on Bon. Since then, Bon had been forced to do battle with his canny wits instead of his fists, wits that were on full display now as he returned Jamie’s glower with an innocent blink of his own.
    Jamie should have disputed his cousin’s words outright but he couldn’t deny the truth in them. There were few on this mountain who would condemn him for sampling the auld mon’s bride. After everything the Hepburn had done to his family—including trying to wipe the Sinclair name from the face of the earth—it would be a fitting revenge for Jamie’s seed to live on in the womb of the woman the