Page 32

S ix days later.

“No, Miss MacLeod. It’s out of the question. I’m appalled you’d even contemplate such a thing, after what happened last time.”

“ Last time? Last time you chased me through the woods, Lord Ballantyne!” Catriona tried to march past him and out the front door of the castle, but once again, he moved to block her way. “I demand you let me pass!”

“As I said, after what happened last time, it’s imperative that you—”

“If anyone is to blame for what happened last time, my lord, it’s you !” She punctuated this tirade with an infuriated stamp of her foot.

Good God. Had there ever been a more ill-tempered woman? “That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose, but it’s rather an oversimplification of what—”

“Step away from the door this instant ,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“I’d like to accommodate you, Miss MacLeod, I truly would, but if you won’t attend to your own safety, then I have no choice but to do it for you.” He crossed his arms over his chest and peered down his nose at her. “I can’t permit you to—”

“ Permit me! You permit me !”

There went her foot again. The heel of her boot struck the stone floor with a sharp clunk, and her cheeks were turning an alarming shade of red.

At least, he thought they were. It was difficult to tell with the hood of that blasted cloak pulled over her face. She looked like a turtle that had lost its way inside its shell.

He despised that hood. He despised that cloak . Most of all, he despised the basket she carried looped over her arm. That damned basket was a harbinger of bad things to come. The very sight of the wretched thing made the vein in his forehead pulse.

The vein he hadn’t even realized was there until the first time he’d encountered Catriona MacLeod. Now it was his constant companion.

“I have eight jars of liniment in this basket, and I will be taking them to Fraser’s Apothecary in Dunvegan, my lord, whether you approve of it or not.” She held out her arm and shook the basket at him.

It was like waving a scarlet cloth in front of an enraged bull, and like an enraged bull, he reacted without thinking, snatching the basket away from her and holding it behind his back. “If you insist upon going into the village, Miss MacLeod, then I’m coming with you.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I don’t wish for your company?”

“Don’t be absurd. Of course, you do. Everyone wants my company. In case you haven’t noticed, Miss MacLeod, I’m excessively charming.”

“I assure you, I don’t .” She glared at him, her hands on her hips. “And you’re not nearly as charming as you think you are, Lord Ballantyne.”

That was another thing he’d come to despise—the sound of his title falling from her lips. She’d called him Hamish the night she’d kissed him, and it had been like the most delicious secret whispered in his ear.

That is, she’d kissed him back . He’d been the one to initiate the kiss, but she’d returned it. Once a lady returned a man’s kiss, shouldn’t she be required to call him by his Christian name?

There should be a rule about that.

But he could hardly blame her for being out of temper with him, after what had happened in her father’s study three days ago. God knew he hadn’t wanted to pull away from her, but he wasn’t a despoiler of virgins.

And there was that other small matter, as well, of him having been the one who’d sent the first lugger to Castle Cairncross.

He wasn’t going to confess to it—he was enough of a blackguard to hide a truth that would prove inconvenient to him—but he wasn’t enough of one to kiss her when he was lying to her.

Or to kiss her again , as it were. Not that he’d had the opportunity.

Ever since that first kiss, she’d been avoiding him as if he had an infectious disease. No matter where she was—the breakfast room, her father’s study, her workroom—if he dared to even linger in the doorway, she’d leave at once, marching past him with her pert little nose in the air.

If he’d known that kissing her would change everything between them, he would have exerted a bit more self-control.

Instead, he’d given in to a moment of passion, then he’d ended it before it even had a chance to begin.

Since then, Catriona had retreated behind an icy propriety that was, he was certain, designed to prevent another kiss from happening.

He’d made a mess of the entire business, and he deserved her ire, but after six days of chasing her through every room in this blasted castle, he’d had enough. “Is this about our kiss, Miss MacLeod? If it is, perhaps we should discuss it.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

He knew it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but alas, by then it was too late.

“Arrggh! You are the most arrogant, infuriating man! It has nothing to do with that! I made a commitment to Glynnis Fraser, and I have a rather urgent need for the money she promised me. That’s all. Not everything is about you , Lord Ballantyne.”

“If that’s all it is, then you can have no objection to my accompanying you.” She couldn’t truly think he’d let her stroll off to the village by herself. He’d seen the way the men at Baird’s Pub had looked at her as she’d passed by the window the other day.

Like starving men with drool trickling down their chins, moments away from falling on a delectable feast.

However they might feel about the MacLeod sisters, there hadn’t been a single man in that pub who’d failed to notice how attractive Catriona MacLeod was.

Then, of course, there was the matter of Bryce Fraser, and that strange comment she’d made about the man when Hamish had followed her into the wood.

You’re not Bryce Fraser . . .

He didn’t remember much from that day, most of his memories having disintegrated in a haze of monkshood poisoning, but even with his head wobbling on his neck as it had been, he remembered that .

Why would she think Bryce Fraser was chasing her through the wood?

There were dozens of answers to that question that would lead to his fist landing in Bryce Fraser’s face, but none that would end with Catriona marching off to the village without his escort.

“You may as well reconcile yourself to the inevitable, Miss MacLeod. Either we both go to the village, or neither of us does. Which will it be?”

She glared at him, a dark scowl gathering like a thundercloud on her face. How the lady managed to make even a scowl look fetching was a mystery, but he had the most overwhelming urge to drop a kiss between those puckered brows.

Meanwhile, she looked as if she’d happily box his ears.

After a great deal of huffing and muttering, a great many heavy sighs, and one last dramatic roll of her eyes, she gave in at last. “Very well, Lord Ballantyne. We’ll both go.”

“I knew you’d come to your senses, Miss MacLeod.”

“Would you be so good as to return my basket to me, my lord? I’d rather carry it myself.”

“Of course.” He reluctantly handed it back to her with a bright smile. “It looks like the sun may break through the clouds. I daresay we’ll have a lovely walk.”

They didn’t, in fact, have a lovely walk, because Catriona refused to speak a word to him the entire way. Even worse, Mrs. MacDonald was the first person they saw when they reached the High Street.

Of course she was, because wicked old harridans like Mrs. MacDonald had a talent for always being in the very last place one wished to find them.

Catriona offered Mrs. MacDonald a brief nod, but he saw her cast a nervous glance over her shoulder at the old woman once they’d passed. As for Mrs. MacDonald, she’d stopped in her tracks as soon as she caught sight of them and hadn’t ceased glowering since.

But Mrs. MacDonald wasn’t the only culprit. He and Cat had hardly ventured two steps before the staring began.

He didn’t give a damn if they stared at him, but Catriona had tensed as soon as the first head had turned in her direction, and she hadn’t relaxed since.

“Come, Miss MacLeod, this errand can wait. Let’s turn back and come another day.” They weren’t likely to receive a warmer reception then, but he couldn’t bear to see Cat so straight-backed and stiff, as if she were hiding a fireplace poker under that damned cloak of hers.

“No, I won’t be so silly as that when we’ve already come this far, and I did promise Glynnis that heather liniment.”

“She can get along without the liniment for another few days. Glynnis Fraser will understand if you don’t bring it to her today.”

“No, it can’t wait. If another boat should come while you’re off searching for the treasure . . .” She trailed off into silence, glancing away from him, but it didn’t matter.

He already knew what she was going to say. If another boat should come, she and her sisters might be obliged to flee the castle, and if it came to that, she’d rather not have empty pockets.

Although if all went as he hoped it would, none of them would be obliged to flee Castle Cairncross in the middle of the night with a band of angry smugglers on their heels.

He’d, ah . . . well, he’d done something. In secret, without consulting Cat. It was either a brilliant idea, or a horrendous one. He couldn’t decide which, but they’d find out soon enough.

Even today, perhaps.

He let out a heavy sigh. “I already told you, Miss MacLeod, that I’d be more than happy to provide you with the funds to—”

“No. We don’t want your money, Lord Ballantyne.” Her chin hitched up. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my sisters myself.”

He couldn’t argue with that. She had taken care of her sisters—they’d taken care of each other—and under exceptionally difficult circumstances. There weren’t many young ladies clever enough to fend off multiple smugglers’ attacks by populating their castle with ghosts and witches.

But Catriona MacLeod wasn’t just any young lady. He hadn’t known her for even a day before he’d drawn that conclusion.