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“That’s a great relief, Miss Fraser.”

But it wasn’t his head that was the problem. Certain, er . . . other parts of his body were swollen and aching, but it wasn’t the organ between his legs that worried him.

It was the one inside his chest.

* * *

“It looks as if we’ll arrive home just in time for tea,” Catriona said to him as they reached the bottom of the long drive that led to the front entrance of the castle.

Dear God, not another tea.

This was another new edict Catriona had invented after their kiss in the workroom. The following day, she’d announced that henceforth, they would all sit down together for a proper tea.

This stilted affair took place in the drawing room—a shabby room none of the MacLeod sisters had set foot in before Cat decided they must all take their tea there.

It was another ploy to keep distance between them, another way to fill the day with the sort of formal nonsense that prevented any real intimacy. Their afternoon tea was an orchestrated affair with pale blue porcelain teacups, silver teaspoons, and tiny frosted cakes, but with little conversation.

He despised teatime nearly as much as he did Catriona’s basket.

It was unbearable, sitting on the disastrously uncomfortable settee in that drawing room with his teacup balanced on his knee and exchanging inane remarks about the weather with Catriona, Freya, and Sorcha MacLeod.

“I don’t want tea.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord?” She turned to him with a smile that looked as if it had been painted on her lips.

“I said, I don’t want tea. I can’t think of a single thing more tedious than afternoon tea.”

“What on earth is wrong with—”

“Stop it, Catriona.” He caught her arm, bringing them to a halt in the middle of the drive. “Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know what you mean, my lord. Doing what?”

But she did know. He could see it in the way her throat worked, and the hot flush of color that swept from her neck into her cheeks. “I beg your pardon for the, ah, incident in your father’s study the other night. I shouldn’t have . . .”

Kissed you . The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t say them, because they were a lie. He didn’t regret kissing her. If he had the chance, he’d do it again in a heartbeat, despite all the reasons he shouldn’t.

“I don’t wish to discuss this with you, my lord.” She turned away from him and continued her way up the drive, leaving him to follow her or not, as he chose.

He chose to follow her, of course. He was beginning to think he’d choose to follow her anywhere. “Wait, Cat. There’s something I need to tell you. I’ve arranged for us to go to—”

“ Nooooo! ”

“Dear God, what was that?” Catriona’s cheeks went white, and she began racing up the drive. “It sounded like Sorcha!”

Another shriek followed the first, this one higher pitched and edged with panic. “What do you think you’re doing? Release her at once!”

The cries were coming from the direction of the castle.

He didn’t pause to hear any more but went tearing up the drive with Catriona on his heels. But what he found when he reached the entryway brought him to such a sudden halt that she slammed right into his back.

“Ouch! What in the world?”

What, indeed? If he’d had every word in the English vocabulary right at the tip of his tongue, he couldn’t have described the scene that was unfolding in the drive.

Callum and Keir had arrived, but they’d been, er . . . waylaid on their way into the castle by Sorcha, who was . . . well, she seemed to have leapt onto Callum’s back and was preventing him from going any further by holding a blade to his throat.

Callum had Freya trapped against his chest. Keir stood on the other side of the drive, his face a mask of horror.

When Keir caught sight of Hamish, his brows lowered in a dark scowl. “Ah, there you are, Ballantyne. What a lovely welcome you’ve arranged for us.”

Hamish gaped at him for a full minute before he gathered his scattered wits enough to speak. “Callum! What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”

“ Me , Ballantyne? What am I doing? Why, nothing much, just attempting to get this hellion off me before she slits my throat.” He reached behind him and tried to snatch a fold of Sorcha’s coat, but she only scrambled higher, climbing up Callum’s back as if she were scaling a tree.

“Perhaps you’d better ask her what she’s doing? ”

“I should think it’s obvious.” Sorcha tightened her legs around Callum’s hips, grasped a handful of his hair, and jerked his head back, pressing her blade more firmly against his throat. “Sending you back to wherever you came from, or else to the devil. Your choice.”

“Some help, if you’d be so kind, Ballantyne?” Callum cast an accusing glower at Keir. “He’s bloody useless enough.”

“I beg your pardon, Callum, but the lady leapt onto your back before I could stop her. Rather an exciting welcome to Castle Cairncross, all told.”

Cat stood beside Hamish with her hand over her mouth, her green eyes so wide they looked as if they might desert her head at any moment. “What’s happening? Who are these men, and why are they manhandling my sisters?”

Callum grunted. “I beg your pardon, madam, but your sister is manhandling me !”

“This is how we treat smugglers!” Sorcha was clinging to Callum like a burr while he spun around in circles, trying to dislodge her. “If you didn’t wish to be manhandled, then you should have found another castle to attack!”

“They’re, ah . . . they’re not smugglers, Miss Sorcha.” Hamish cleared his throat. “They’re my friends. Er, Callum Ross and Keir Dunn, these young ladies are Freya and Catriona MacLeod. The one on your back, Callum, is Sorcha MacLeod.”

“Delightful to meet you, Miss Sorcha.” Callum had caught one of Sorcha’s ankles and was tugging on it as if it were a stubborn corset lace. “Now we’re friends, perhaps you’d be so good as to get off me .”

“Lord Ballantyne?” Cat edged closer to him, one eye on Sorcha, and lowered her voice. “Is there a reason your friends are standing in my drive right now?”

Here it was. Either she’d be pleased, or he was destined for more stilted teatimes. “Yes. I wrote to them and asked them to come to Castle Cairncross to watch over Sorcha and Freya, so you could come with me to Ballantrae to see Donigan.”

“You did?” Slowly, her lips began to curve . . . up, up, up, and then there it was.

A smile, like a flower opening.

“Yes.” He could have said more—that she deserved to go, that he wanted her with him, that he hadn’t liked seeing the life drain out of her when she thought she’d be left behind—but what emerged from his lips instead was an awkward, “It didn’t seem fair otherwise.”

She gazed at him for a moment, the smile still on her lips, then she turned and strode across the drive, waving her hands at her youngest sister.

“Sorcha! Get off that man at once!”