Page 9 of The Highlander’s Hunted Wife (Legacy of Highland Lairds #2)

9

W hat was that? What is the matter with me?

Tucked in an unfamiliar bed, more comfortable than any she’d ever lain in, Katie had no hope of falling asleep. Every sound had her sitting bolt upright, every attempt to drift off thwarted by worries about her siblings and vivid memories of what had happened in the woods.

Her skin tingled afresh at the fervid memories, her lungs shallowing her breaths as if she were still pressed against the tree, Hector’s hand doing… extraordinary things to her entire being. She’d never known that a touch could be so explosive, or that a kiss wasn’t just the press of lips, but an invitation for someone else to take the reins of her whole body.

She touched her lips, still slightly swollen.

He tricked me. He… distracted me with his… and I couldnae think straight and… Oh, goodness me.

It was proving difficult to admit that she’d kissed him back because she’d wanted to, swept up in the novelty and thrill of the moment. It was even harder to admit that she was ashamed of how willingly she’d indulged, embarrassed by her wildness now that she had time to dwell on it.

“I willnae let meself enjoy his… company,” she told the swaying cobwebs, which seemed structural, holding the rafters to the ceiling. “I willnae even have to see him again if I keep meself occupied with Isla and me siblings. Aye, that’d be for the best.”

She groaned, thinking of one sibling in particular. Lyall was not going to like the agreement she’d reached with Hector. Certainly, over the next three months, she was going to have her work cut out for her trying to keep her siblings in line, without stepping over the line herself.

“Can someone knock me out?” she muttered to the empty bedchamber, squeezing her eyes shut, willing sleep to take her out of her own head.

It might be the last peaceful night she had for a while, after all.

Whatever ye do, dinnae stuff yer face like a pig at the trough.

Katie envied the roast pheasant that adorned a silver tray in the center of a long, timeworn table. It didn’t have to sit there politely, its mouth watering, trying to avoid Hector’s eye while fielding questions from Isla about what it did with its evening.

“Did ye enjoy yer bath?” Isla asked cheerily.

Her hand moved toward a partially sliced loaf of bread, and Katie’s hopes spiked. She’d been waiting for the Laird and his grandmother to start eating so that she could fill her empty stomach. At home, it was every sibling for themselves, and no one had instructed her about dining etiquette. But she had the sage feeling that it would be frowned upon if she started gorging herself before the others, being at the bottom of the figurative ladder and all.

Tormenting Katie, Isla retracted her hand and sipped from her cup of weak ale instead.

“Aye, thank ye,” Katie replied. “I’ve never had one before.”

A young man seated on Hector’s right promptly choked on his ale, droplets spraying over the rim. “Ye’ve never had a bath before?”

The humiliation was swift and hot, her cheeks burning. “We’ve… um… never had the need,” she replied, her throat tight. “A river runs past the cottage. It’s the only bath we’ve ever had to use.”

“What about when it freezes over?” the man asked, wide-eyed as if she had just told him that she liked to bathe in a barrel of sour milk instead.

She shrugged awkwardly. “We smash the ice.”

“Flynn, stuff a crust of bread in yer mouth, so words dinnae come out,” Isla chided sharply.

If Katie hadn’t been so uncomfortable, questioning her every movement, she might have laughed. Nevertheless, it felt rather nice to have someone come to her defense… especially in such a casually damning fashion.

“Apologies,” the man, Flynn, said with a smile. “I meant nay offense. I was truly curious.”

Isla picked up a slice of bread and tossed it at him, needing no words to make her point.

Chuckling good-naturedly, Flynn caught the crust and duly began chewing on it. His easy manner stood in stark contrast to the stony boulder of a man who sat between him and Isla, sipping a hot drink that smelled familiar. It reminded Katie of the village healer’s hut—earthy, fragrant, herbaceous, with the unique undernote of the region’s fresh honey, the bees feasting on heather.

“Are ye nae hungry, lassie?” Isla asked, her brow furrowed with the deep concern that only a grandmother could muster. The look that compelled an older woman to feed anyone they deemed too thin.

Katie was spared from answering that she was ravenous and about to start drooling by the sound of the hall doors opening.

One of the most beautiful women she had ever seen breezed in, bearing a plate of cut and skinned apples and a small dish of golden honey. Possessed of long, dark hair, half of it held back from her face in a circlet of braids, with skin the color of fresh cream and absent a single freckle, she was so pretty that Katie could not stop staring.

Is she a cousin? A niece?

The woman’s next actions kicked that notion right out of Katie’s head.

“Dinnae mind me, M’Laird,” she said with a twinkle in her dark eyes, so large and pretty, framed with long, fanning lashes. “I’ll just put this here.”

She leaned right over Hector’s broad shoulder, practically resting her breasts on that muscular edge. She lingered there for far longer than was necessary to set down a tray, especially considering she could have approached the table from any other angle without touching anyone at all.

Definitely nae family…

“I peeled them for ye meself,” the woman, seemingly a maid, said in a loud whisper, close to Hector’s ear. “ Pored over them. Made sure they are just how ye like them. I found meself quite warm, me hand achin’ with all that movement.”

Katie stared at her in disbelief, the hunger shocked from her stomach.

She must be a… lover or somethin’.

An unwelcome, cold feeling coiled in her abdomen, prompting her to look away from the—frankly explicit—scene. She told herself it was the lack of decorum that bothered her, determined to believe it. It didn’t matter that she’d seen and heard the village girls do far worse without it eliciting a single feeling.

Hector pushed the plate toward Isla, ignoring the maid altogether.

Undeterred, the maid swaggered around to the side of the table, putting herself in his view. She rested her hand on the stained surface and bent forward, the plunging neckline of her dress revealing two very different, but no less impressive, apples.

“I was also told to tell ye, M’Laird,” she purred, fluttering those butterfly lashes at him, “that Her Ladyship’s guests have arrived.”

Katie sat up straighter in her chair. “Me siblings are here?”

The maid smiled at her. “Aye, but there’s a problem.”

“A problem?” Katie gasped, her hands clasped.

“Big or small?” Hector asked, not bothering to look at the maid or Katie.

That was no surprise; he hadn’t looked at Katie at all since she’d come down for breakfast at Isla’s insistence. As if the night before had never happened, and what he had made her feel had been a figment of her imagination, a trick of those unsettling woods. It might well have been a mystical creature taking on the shape and face of Hector, for all his reaction to her.

The maid let out a husky, seductive laugh. “I wouldnae call it small.” She flashed a wink at Katie. “But manageable in the right hands.”

“ She needs a crust of bread an’ all,” Isla muttered under her breath, while Flynn sat back in his chair, admiring the maid shamelessly.

At that moment, a booming bark rang in the hallway beyond the hall, speaking the throaty, resonant language of an ally that Katie knew so very well.

“Pipkin!” she gasped, jumping up as the hall doors opened and a lumbering, silky gray beast barreled in.

“Mercy me!” Flynn cried, hurrying out of his seat and skidding to his knees on the flagstones, opening his arms to the beautiful hound.

The huge mastiff, gentle as a child as long as he sensed no threat, lolloped toward him. He sniffed Flynn cautiously, his jowls dripping globules of drool onto the floor, followed by the immediate and vigorous wag of an excited tail.

Pipkin promptly knocked Flynn over, licking all over his face, while Flynn laughed with boyish delight, scratching the enormous hound’s neck.

Katie was just as eager to welcome the dog, but a greater joy had just wandered tentatively through the doors. The moment Bonnie saw her older sister, she broke into a sprint, running straight into Katie’s relieved arms.

“Me sweet, sweet lass,” Katie mumbled into her sister’s shoulder, holding her as tightly as she could without cutting off her breath. “Let me have a look at ye.”

She pulled back, searching Bonnie’s face and clothes for any sign of trouble, but the little girl was freshly scrubbed and well-presented. Maybe Lyall wasn’t so inept at running a household, after all. Either that or Bonnie had taken it upon herself to make sure she looked like she more or less belonged in the castle.

Katie dreaded to think what Hector would have thought if Bonnie had walked in the way she did at the cottage, after hunting in the woods with Pipkin—filthy, her clothes covered in holes, with half a forest stuck in her hair, the other half clinging to her dress, only occasionally wearing shoes.

“Did ye manage last night?” Katie asked, cupping her sister’s face. “Did anyone bother ye? Did Lyall stand guard?”

For the first time that morning, she felt Hector’s eyes on her, like an intense pressure working its way up her body, flooding her skin with nervous heat.

Bonnie neglected to answer, twisting her head back to glare at Hector instead. “Is this the monster that caught ye in its snare?”

“Bonnie…” Katie murmured, keeping her attention on her sister, not daring to see Hector’s reaction.

“Lyall told me all about it when he got back,” Bonnie continued obliviously. “If ye’d taken Pipkin with ye, he would’ve protected ye. He’d have broken off the monster’s arm and gulped it down for dinner.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Katie noticed that Pipkin had flopped down onto Flynn, crushing him with the vast weight of his affection. And Flynn was unashamedly relishing every moment of it, rubbing the mastiff’s velvety ears.

The lovely dog wasn’t exactly giving the impression that he was a fearsome beast.

The thought brought a small smile to Katie’s lips. A smile she hurriedly hid, in case Hector got the wrong idea.

“I dinnae doubt that, Bonnie,” she said evenly, “but I didnae need his protection because there was nay monster. It was our Laird, and he meant me nay harm at all. In fact, he saved me from havin’ to travel back home in the dark, where real monsters might’ve devoured me.”

He caused me the very opposite of harm…

Katie swallowed at the thought; she was probably red enough without adding a secondary glaze of heat to her face. And it clearly hadn’t been anything special or surprising for Hector, who had probably done that and far more with the maid. The beautiful woman surely wouldn’t flirt like that without good reason.

Bonnie giggled, snapping her sister out of her thoughts, her lighter blue eyes twinkling with glee. “Ye wouldnae taste very nice.”

“Nay, I dinnae expect I would.” Katie gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Now, maybe ye should apologize to the Laird.”

Finally trusting herself, she turned her attention to Hector. Her eyes widened in surprise as they met his. He was looking at her intently, licking his lips for a moment as if he was curious to know what she tasted like.

I suppose it would only be fair, since I bit him… A bite for a bite.

She cleared her throat, wishing she had better control over the flush on her face. The castle cook could have roasted that breakfast pheasant on her cheeks, and it would have ended up charred.

“Apologize, Bonnie,” she instructed more firmly.

Putting her hand in Katie’s, Bonnie bowed her head. “Sorry for callin’ ye a monster, M’Laird. Lyall must’ve told the story wrong.”

Hector turned his attention to the girl, his expression only slightly less aloof than normal, the fleeting thaw of a Fool’s Spring. “There’s nay harm done.” He sipped his drink. “Where is yer braither?”

“One’s dead,” Bonnie replied with the blunt frankness of a child. “The other is at the cottage. Said he’d visit, but he didnae want to come and stay. Might change his mind, might nae. He just said that I had to come.”

“What?” Katie rasped. “Well, who brought ye here? Dinnae tell me ye walked all the way here by yerself?”

With or without Pipkin, Bonnie would have been perfectly capable of making the walk by herself, the courage and competence she possessed far exceeding her small stature and short life. But Lyall was supposed to be looking out for her. He owed Katie that.

Katie glanced at the maid, who loitered at the side of the room. “I thought ye said me siblings —plural—had arrived?”

“The dog isnae a sibling?” the maid replied with a grin, not unkind but not concerned either.

Unease worked its way down Katie’s throat and into her belly like a bad oyster. She floundered, gripping Bonnie’s hand tightly, unable to decide what to do.

I made a promise to the Laird that I cannae break again.

The girl at her side represented the consequences. Hector had made that clear, though he’d made other things fuzzy.

“Miss Blake,” Hector said, rising from his chair, still holding his cup of steaming, herbal tea.

“What?” Bonnie replied, not intentionally rude. At least, Katie hoped not.

Hector nodded his head toward Katie. “That one.” He headed for the door, tossing back over his shoulder, “Join me for a moment. We have a problem to discuss.”

He walked out of the hall, not bothering to wait for her. He knew well enough that she would follow. After all, she wasn’t supposed to disobey him again.

I suppose a ‘please’ would kill him.

Katie fumed silently, still adjusting to the feeling of existing at someone else’s command. Ever since her parents died, and with Johnson always away at war or needed at the castle, she had been responsible for a household for years. She had been the one in charge.

“I willnae be long,” she said to Bonnie, reluctant to let go of her younger sister’s hand. “Stay with Pipkin and… dinnae break anythin’ or touch anythin’.”

Overhearing, Isla took that moment to welcome the youngest Blake sibling. “Ye come on over to me and we’ll get ye fed. Yer wee pup, too. What do ye say?”

“I say… I’d like some bread,” Bonnie replied eagerly, earning a pointed nudge in the arm from her older sister.

“Manners,” Katie whispered, painfully aware that her family was not making the best first impression.

Bonnie nodded jauntily, smiling at Isla. “I would like some bread and butter, please. ”

“How polite ye are!” Isla laughed, beckoning her over. “Well, ye shall certainly have all the bread and butter yer stomach can take. Come and sit up here with me.”

Katie left the old woman and the little girl chattering, wandering past Pipkin and Flynn, who were now in the midst of some kind of pouncing game. She had a feeling she knew exactly what the problem was going to be.

“Dinnae keep me waitin’, lass,” Hector growled as she finally stepped out into the hallway.

Once again, he didn’t wait, striding off with the fair expectation that she would follow.

“Where are we goin’?” she called after him, hesitant to be far from her sister.

He didn’t respond, vanishing around a corner.