Page 51 of Highland Fire

Lady Randal said mildly, “Don’t interrupt when a conversation is in progress, dear. It’s not polite. What Rand is referring to is the little family gathering I had it in mind to arrange for him before he took off for Scotland. With one thing and another, it had to be postponed.”

“A family gathering? Yes, I like that idea.” Peter had pinned each sister in turn with a playfully menacing look. “Perhaps Emily or Jane can be persuaded to invite the twins for a visit…A long visit,” he added meaningfully.

The heated exchange that this provoked was ignored by the dowager.

“A family house party,” she mused, “with a few select guests. And in conclusion, a gala ball. Yes, my mind is set on it, and really, we are close enough to London that the distance can scarcely matter. Besides, we have plenty of spare beds to put up our guests.”

“Guests? What guests?” Peter demanded, baffled. “Rand said nothing about guests.”

The twins were in transports. “A house party!” squealed one. “How famous!”

“And a ball! Just like the return of the prodigal!”

At this enthusiastic reception of her plans, the dowager beamed. “I’d best write out the invitations and have them delivered as soon as possible. When does Rand say we may expect him, Martha?”

As mother and daughters became involved in the intricacies of planning a house party and ball, Peter absently sipped his wine. His mother was up to something, he thought. He would bet his last groat on it.

The nearer the coach drew to Cranley, the more uneasy Caitlin became. It started when Rand idly looked up from reading his newspaper to glance out the window.

“At last!” he said. “We are on Cranley land.”

“How long till we reach the house?”

“Two or three hours should do it.”

For a moment, Caitlin was sure she must have misheard him. In two or three hours, their coach would cover nigh on thirty miles. “How many acres are we talking about?”

Rand had to think for a minute. “Thirty thousand, and all of it prime. This isn’t a rich man’s plaything, Caitlin. This is a working farm.”

If Cranley had belonged to anyone else, so Caitlin told herself, she would have been thrilled at each interesting prospect Rand pointed out to her as they gradually approached the house.

She took it all in. There were acres of trees, and scores of foresters wielding axes or transporting the felled logs in carts pulled by immense dray horses.

The hills, which were quite low, were thick with the herds of cattle and sheep that roamed them at will.

There was mile upon mile of rich arable land, and teams of oxen and men were already preparing the fields for the spring sowing.

They passed hamlets and villages, all of them on Cranley land.

That all of this belonged to her husband and his family was so intimidating, Caitlin wanted to turn and run for home.

The great gulf that divided them had never been more apparent to her than here, in Rand’s own setting. She didn’t wonder now that he thought of Strathcairn as a mere hunting lodge. Deeside could never compare to this. A pang pierced her heart.

“It’s not Deeside by any means,” said Rand, studying her expression.

No, it wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to let him crow about it. “There are no mountains,” she said, peering out one window, then the other, as though she might have missed them by blinking at the wrong moment.

“Mountains? What would I want with mountains? You can’t cultivate them. There’s no money to be made in mountains.”

“Is that all you can think about—making money?” She sounded so prudish, even to her own ears, that she winced.

She wasn’t prudish, leastways not about making money.

She was feeling shaky and overset and in need of a little comforting.

As each mile passed, the enormity of their situation was impressed upon her.

Rand ought never to have married her. It was as simple as that.

A man in his position would be expected to make a brilliant match.

People, and his family in particular, would look askance at the little nobody to whom he had shackled himself.

She would be regarded as a millstone around his neck, the girl who had pulled off the coup of the century, not through beauty or grace or her irresistible charms but because she had played her cards right and had forced him into marriage.

She put a brake on her runaway thoughts. They were married, for better or worse. There was no point in crying over spilled milk.

Rand’s voice recalled her to the present. “As you know very well, money isn’t all I can think about, not by a long shot.”

His eyes were smiling at her, more than a hint of hunger behind the indulgent humor. She knew that look. He wanted her, now, at this very minute, and no amount of persuasion or prevarication on her part was going to change the outcome. So he thought.

“We’ve got plenty of time.” He quickly pulled down the shades. “Darling,” he said, and reached for her.

She scuttled along the banquette to the far corner, as far from him as possible. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” She wasn’t feigning her horror. “You can’t just tumble me in the coach and then present me to your family as though nothing had happened.”

“Why can’t I?”

He was serious. She slapped his hands away.

“Why can’t you?” She could give him a score of reasons.

Because a coach wasn’t the proper place for what he had in mind.

Because her clothes would be crushed past redemption and her hair would be disheveled.

Because his family would know what they had been up to the moment she stepped from the carriage.

If nothing else, her blushes would give the game away.

If there was one thing on which she was resolved, it was that she was going to make a good impression on Rand’s family.

Her high-waisted pink silk pelisse, trimmed at the wrist and hem with white piping, and its matching carriage dress, had been purchased in York and carefully stowed until this very morning.

The high poke bonnet, which she had set on the banquette, was a delectable confection of white velvet and pink ostrich feathers.

An ermine muff and white kid gloves with little kid half-boots to match completed the ensemble.

And her long hair, which she could not persuade Rand to allow her to cut in the current vogue, had been professionally dressed in coronets and ringlets, all of it held together with scores of hair pins and tiny white velvet bows.

She didn’t care that her feet were smarting from the too tight half-boots.

She didn’t care that her head felt like a pincushion.

To make a good impression on Rand’s family, no sacrifice was too great.

Knowing that none of this would weigh with Rand, she said simply and with great dignity, “Because I don’t want you to.”

He had gradually eased along the opposite banquette until they were knee to knee. His broad shoulders were slumped comfortably against the squabs, and his arms were folded across his chest in an attitude of supreme nonchalance. A wicked twinkle lurked at the back of his eyes.

“I know how to change that ‘no’ into a ‘yes,’” he said softly.

It was no idle boast. One look, one touch and she melted for him.

She wouldn’t have believed it possible if he had not proved it to her time without number over the last little while.

It was beyond belief that she, Caitlin Randal, confirmed spinster, should burn for a man’s touches.

It had never happened to her before Rand.

The meeting of true minds—that was what she had esteemed in relations between the sexes.

Rand took a devilish delight in demonstrating that it wasn’t his mind she lusted after but his magnificent body.

It was true. He knew how to make her ache for him until she was screaming with frustrated desire.

But not today.

As his hand feathered along her knee, she jumped and brushed it away. “Don’t start that! I don’t want you to touch me, Rand! I mean it!”

At once, his hand lifted and he folded his arms across his chest. The twinkle in his eye became even more roguish.

“I can change that ‘no’ into a ‘yes’ without laying a finger on you,” he said, with so much complaisance that Caitlin’s blood began to heat. They both knew that she was susceptible to him, but this blatant display of masculine arrogance was not only galling, it simply wasn’t merited.

“Without laying a finger on me?” she repeated, smiling through her teeth.

“I don’t have to touch you, and you’ll come tumbling into my arms, begging me to take you.”

She gasped. She huffed. She shook her head and looked up at the carriage roof.

Every gesture was calculated to demonstrate her complete and utter incredulity.

It was all wasted on Rand because when she brought her gaze back to his, he wasn’t even looking at her but was examining one of his beautifully manicured hands.

“What is this?” she asked, making a fair stab at imitating his nonchalance. “Is this some kind of joke?”

The eyes brightened. “Let us say, rather, a wager. Yes. Let us say a wager, shall we, between a Highlander and a lowlander?”

Suspicion narrowed her eyes to slits. She had the strangest feeling that he was playing her as though she were a pawn in a game of chess.

He was too casual, too relaxed, and much too sure of himself for her peace of mind.

She was cautious. At the same time, she was annoyed that he would think he had so much power over her. Annoyance won out.

“A wager,” she snapped, “between a Highlander and a lowlander? You make it sound as though the war for Scottish independence were still in progress.”

His teeth flashed white in the shadowy interior. “Isn’t it?” he murmured. “And something tells me this battle is going to be the turning point.”

Insufferable, she was thinking. Smiling, she said, “I haven’t said I accept your wager.”