Page 26 of The Highlander’s Hunted Wife (Legacy of Highland Lairds #2)

26

“ I can do that, ye ken,” Katie said as Hector painstakingly threaded thin green ribbon through the eyelets of her bodice.

“Aye, ye keep sayin’,” he muttered, needing all of his concentration for the task. “And, as I keep tellin’ ye , this will be faster if ye’d stop distractin’ me.”

She laughed—that sweet, melodic sound he’d thought he would never hear again. Not because of him, anyway.

“How on earth am I distractin’ ye? I’m just standin’ here, waitin’ for ye to do somethin’ that I can do in two minutes.”

For a morsel of revenge, he pulled the two ends of the ribbon with all his strength, hearing her breath catch as the bodice tightened. He wasn’t sure what the bodice itself was supposed to achieve when she had the most perfect curves without it, but he had no interest in questioning women’s fashion.

I’m just interested in seein’ this on the floor, so I can admire something truly flawless.

His loins stirred beneath his plaid, his gaze flitting to the small clock on the mantelpiece, wondering if they had time for more. He shook the thought away. Someone would’ve noticed their absence already, his at least, and he wasn’t in the mood to fabricate a story for anyone. That was his grandmother’s expertise.

Still, he couldn’t say that he was sorry his grandmother had meddled—neither this time nor the last, despite the unpleasantness of earlier. It had never been Katie’s fault, and though he figured that he ought to tell her as much, he hadn’t yet found the right words.

How do I tell her that I… dreamed an omen? That me sister always told me never to ignore ‘em, when that’s exactly what I’m doin’.

A thin current of unease chased the rush of earlier pleasures through his veins, but he wouldn’t allow it to catch up. Indeed, with the sound of Katie’s cries of bliss still echoing in his mind, he decided to trust that one puny nightmare was not an omen.

Their increasingly intimate encounters didn’t mean she was going to die—that was ridiculous. And the more he thought that, the more he allowed himself to believe it.

“There,” he said, tying the ends of the ribbon into a knot. “Ye see, it didnae take any time at all.”

Raising a dubious eyebrow, Katie turned her back on him and moved toward the looking glass on the other side of the room. Standing before it, she tucked the knot under the edge of her bodice and searched her reflection for any other signs that she had recently been relieved of her clothes.

Curious, Hector joined her, standing behind her as he observed her beautiful reflection.

“Ye dinnae approve of me handiwork?” he asked.

She met his gaze in the mirror. “Nay, ye did well.” She hesitated, a flush rushing to her cheeks. “I’m just wonderin’ if there are things I cannae see that others might.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. “I dinnae ken. Some… mark that’ll give me away.”

“I didnae leave any,” he told her, brushing her long strawberry-blonde hair back to expose her neck, just to be sure.

He bent his head, pressing a kiss to that soft skin, tempted to leave a mark for his own satisfaction. If he glanced at her across the feasting table, only he would know it was there.

Alas, even he knew that the neck was too obvious. He should have left a mark on her thigh instead, but it was too late to remedy that now.

“But… do I look like I’ve been… up to somethin’?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

“I’m the wrong person to ask.”

Draping his arm across her chest, Hector pressed a lingering kiss to the back of her neck.

The ensuing gasp that rang out in the room didn’t come from her, though it took him half a second too long to realize it. Katie stood frozen, her eyes wide, staring at something in the mirror.

Hector didn’t need the mirror’s help, his head twisting sharply to find an audience gawping in the doorway. Betrayed by silent hinges and the practiced, stealthy turn of the key.

His grandmother had done it again, messing with the order of things.

“Heavens!” Isla cried, putting on a grand performance, clutching her hand to her chest. “I only came to see if I could mend the hole in me gown! And now me grandson has compromised me poor companion! Oh, what are we goin’ to do? This is so very unseemly for a laird! There’ll be an uproar!”

Alison and Duncan, who had joined Isla in her ‘accidental’ discovery, exchanged an amused look. Biting her lip, Alison tried to stifle a laugh, while Duncan turned his attention back to Hector, raising a pointed eyebrow. As if he’d just had something confirmed.

There was only one small mercy—the lassies and the dog weren’t there to bear witness to the culmination of Isla’s grand plan.

“Oh, this willnae do at all,” the old woman wailed, shaking her head. “What a terrible scandal it’ll be! If I were the only one who saw ye, perhaps it could be avoided, but Laird and Lady Marsden saw ye too—oh goodness, what are we goin’ to do?”

Hector stepped in front of Katie, who hadn’t moved a muscle, though he heard her shallow, frantic breathing.

“Everybody out!” he snarled.

The ghost of a grin tugged at Isla’s lips for just a moment. “We couldnae possibly leave ye alone together again!” she declared theatrically, waving her hand. “Nay, we couldnae do it. Och, I never would have expected this! I didnae expect it at all.”

“Out!” Hector roared, his voice so loud that it rattled the decanter and glasses on the side table.

Isla jumped in fright, having the sense to usher Alison and Duncan out of the room before closing the door behind her.

This time, there was no taunting turn of the key in the lock. After that, his grandmother wouldn’t have dared to pull the same trick twice.

Turning slowly, as if sudden movements might frighten Katie, Hector glanced at her reflection in the mirror. She had turned as white as a sheet, that beautiful blush gone from her cheeks, and her enchanting, bluebell eyes were wide to the terrified whites.

He cursed silently.

Is this really what ye wanted? Ye see what ye’ve done to her, ye meddlesome woman?

Isla had gone and scared the life out of her, and unlike the ribbons binding her bodice together, Hector wasn’t too sure how he was going to fix it.

It’ll be the village all over again.

“I didnae think…” Katie wheezed, her chest clenched in a vise, growing tighter. “I… didnae think. We’ll be… chased out. We’ll have to leave.”

She closed her eyes, but it did nothing to ease her terror. She’d thought the door was locked, forgetting who held the key. Even so, she’d never expected that Isla would be so brazen as to… walk in on whatever was taking place inside the room.

Katie’s entire being boiled with shame and embarrassment. She dreaded to think of the reaction if Isla had walked in on them mere moments earlier.

“I shouldnae have… Och, what was I doin’?” she gasped, panic a writhing, living thing in the pit of her belly, slithering upward, trying to escape through her throat. “How could I be so stupid? As if things werenae already bad enough!”

Why is he nae sayin’ anythin’?

She couldn’t bring herself to meet Hector’s eyes, yet his silence spoke volumes. Perhaps he hadn’t regretted anything before, but he surely did now.

“I should go,” she croaked. “I should… pack what we have and leave as soon as possible. I dinnae ken where we’ll go, but… och, it couldnae be any worse, wherever we end up.”

Hector’s hands closed around her arms, turning her to face him. Those eyes, so warm and full of life before, had clouded over to an overcast gray that whispered of a storm brewing.

“Take a deep breath,” he said, his voice neither soft nor cold.

She tried, the air shuddering in and out of her lungs. “I assume ye’ll let me leave before me three months? We should really go tonight. We should?—”

“Ye’ll stay,” he commanded, his hands tightening on her arms. “I’ll remedy this.”

“How?” she asked, her voice strained. “Are ye goin’ to chase them down and threaten them to stay quiet? This must have been part of Isla’s scheme, so it’s nae likely that she’ll keep it to herself.”

And Katie had liked the old woman so much, too. The betrayal stung, like a thorn in the middle of her chest, sinking deeper with each shallow breath she took.

“I’ll marry ye,” Hector said gruffly.

She had seen countless couples get married in the village, but she had never seen any man look less enthusiastic about such a prospect in all those years.

Pulling back, she frowned up at him. “What?”

“I’ll marry ye,” he repeated, his tone unchanged. “But it’ll nae be a fairytale, lass, so dinnae get any notions. It’s me doin’ me duty, for causin’ this trouble. I’ll marry ye, aye, but ye must promise nae to ask more of me than I can give ye.”

She blinked, freshly wounded by the barb in his voice. In an instant, he’d transformed back into the rude brute who’d kicked her out of bed that morning and ridden to and from Inverness with a face like thunder. Gone was the passionate lover who’d driven her to realms of bliss, who’d pressed tender kisses to her neck, who’d promised her that he had no regrets.

“What do ye mean?” she asked, scrunching up her face in confusion. “Ask more of ye than ye can give—what does that mean?”

Does he think I want his fortune? Does he think I want fine things and trinkets?

It was the only thing she could think of that made any sense.

He released his hold on her. “It means exactly what it means.” His jaw clenched, irritation bristling up the sinews and muscles to the corner of his scarred eyebrow. “This will be a marriage of duty, to quell any trouble before it rises. It willnae be anythin’ but that.”

He hadn’t offered any details, but the clarity of understanding was as sharp and direct as an arrow through Katie’s skull. He wasn’t worried about her making frivolous demands, not in the material sense, but about her expecting too much.

He means there’ll be nay love… nay affection… none of what a lass might hope for in a marriage.

She had not thought of love when she had been caught up in the passion of the moment—several moments—with him. It had been a thing of instinct and impulse, conjured by the intangible source of one’s desire. A welcome escape. A curiosity satisfied.

Love had not been a hope in her heart at all, as she was aware that she was still a guest and he was a mighty laird.

She had not been lying when she had said she had no ambition to be a Lady, that she was not made to be a Lady, but to hear him prohibit the idea of love, in a marriage of all things… it was a vicious blow that left her reeling.

“Bairns?” she choked out hopelessly.

“I doubt it.” His expression hardened. “Ye’re already askin’ for things ye shouldnae. If ye cannae keep that promise…”

He let the threat hang in the air between them, where crackling euphoria and mutual fervor had been not long ago.

She understood. If she couldn’t abide by the rules he was setting, then there would be no wedding and no marriage. And if that didn’t come to pass, then she would be thrown from the frying pan into the fire, forced to put her family through a second round of ostracization.

They couldn’t bear another scandal; it would shatter the Blakes completely.

Who else would have me, after that?

There was the miller, Lewis Harrison, who still deigned to speak to her and had made no secret of his affection for her. He had asked her to marry him every week for four years since she turned eight-and-ten, and though he usually asked in a jesting fashion, the good flour he kept aside suggested greater sincerity.

In a way, it was partially the miller’s fault that she was in this position. He was the one who had told her where Lyall had gone, leading her to Hector’s study and that fateful chase. If the miller were Isla, he would have planned it out just so, to make Katie so unmarriageable that she would have to accept him.

But I dinnae have to refuse Hector, she reminded herself.

“It would be a… fake marriage?” she asked, to be certain of what Hector was asking of her.

He shrugged. “Aye, if that’s what ye want to call it.”

It took every shred of willpower that Katie possessed not to lose her temper. Of course, she didn’t want to call it that. She didn’t want a ‘fake’ marriage at all, or a ‘fake’ husband who would never love her—wouldn’t even try to. It was little more than being a prisoner without bars.

“It’s better that I dinnae lie to ye,” he added, his tone a frosty thing that she had no hope of thawing now.

She held his gaze, searching for any semblance of the man who had reassured her. She couldn’t find him anywhere in those stony pools.

Yet, despite her hurt, her dismay, it wasn’t as if she could decline his offer. If enduring an empty marriage, devoid of affection and feeling, meant keeping her siblings safe and away from derision, then she really had no choice at all.

They’ve been through enough.

“Looks like I’ll be trapped here for far longer than three months, then,” she answered bitterly. “Here’s to our happy union.”

She pretended to raise a glass, and, with one last glare at Hector, she left the room—the snare that had pulled her into this mess.