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He couldn’t see it clearly from his hiding place, but he could guess what it was. That sort of ring generally boasted a heraldic coat of arms, and it didn’t take a genius to deduce which clan the crest belonged to.

Clan MacLeod.

The man had loosened his grip, and Cat managed to jerk away from him and scramble to her feet. “My father’s ring!”

“Where are the bloody gold coins?” The man caught Cat by the throat and wrenched her toward him, a snarl of rage on his lips. “I know ye know where it is! Tell me, or I’ll snap your neck for you!”

As soon as the villain touched her, Hamish stopped thinking. He didn’t remember rising to his feet, nor did he remember leaping over the ledge onto the villain’s back.

He didn’t feel the blow that landed on the side of his head, catching the corner of his eye, or the point of the dirk sinking into his shoulder.

Cat’s scream was the only thing he heard—hoarse, panicked, and heavy with anguish, and even then, even while he was amid the struggle, he knew it would be a long time before he forgot that scream.

And, oddly enough, he remembered the nettles. The sting of them in his palm as he snatched a fistful of the blackguard’s shirt in one hand, and with the other shoved them into his gaping mouth and pushed them as far down into his throat as he could reach.

The man’s reaction was satisfyingly quick, and even more satisfyingly extreme.

He released Cat at once, letting out a howl that reverberated with such resonance in the open space around them they could have heard it in Tongue. He slapped both hands over his mouth, and the dirk and Rory’s ring fell to the ground.

“Quickly, Cat! Fetch your father’s ring.”

She darted for it while he made quick work of the smuggler, who was in no position to defend himself. With one blow to the face, he knocked the man to his knees, then hefted one of the heavier rocks scattered around them and brought it down on the man’s head.

Not hard enough to kill him—he was no murderer—but certainly hard enough to knock him unconscious until the authorities could be summoned, and the man properly dealt with.

The man toppled over into the dirt with a soft whimper, and lay there, still.

“Cat.” Hamish caught her in his arms and held her against him, his eyes closing as he cradled her head in his hands and buried his face in her hair. She was trembling, her chest heaving with her frantic breaths, but she was warm and alive, and she was in his arms.

He held her, their hearts pounding in rhythm together before he reluctantly released her and took her hand, scooping up the dirk with his other one. “Come on, love.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ve seen enough of Castle Varrich for the day, haven’t you?”

“I’ve seen enough of it for a lifetime.” Cat whirled around and rushed toward the pathway, but she didn’t let go of his hand.

She wrapped her fingers around his and kept them there all the way back to Tongue.

* * *

“Oh, dear. Does it hurt?” Cat glanced up in time to catch Hamish’s wince.

“No. Not much.”

She shook her head, a smile twitching at the corners of her lips. He was nearly as bad a liar as she was. He’d said the same thing about his eye, which was now swollen shut and turning a shade of dark purple that reminded her of twilight at Castle Cairncross.

“And your shoulder? How does it feel?”

“It’s fine.”

Oh, yes. He was perfectly fine, even though the blood was seeping through the bandage she’d fashioned from one of his cravats.

Another item from his elegant wardrobe, ruined.

He was likely cursing the day he’d met her.

They were sitting atop the bed in their bedchamber at The Golden Coin, one of his hands cradled in hers while she ran a wet, soapy cloth over the red rash the stinging nettles had left.

He’d been quiet since they’d returned from the castle ruins. If he hadn’t been gazing at her as he was, she might have believed he was a million miles away, his thoughts anywhere but on what would soon unfold between them in this bedchamber.

It hadn’t yet, but like a sharply indrawn breath on the verge of bursting free, it would.

All the unsaid words were swelling between them, waiting to be spoken.

“I—” she began, at the same time as he said, “That man—”

They both gave a nervous chuckle, then she waved her hand at him. “You go first.”

“That man at the ruins. Do you know who he is?”

“No.” She didn’t know anything about the man, aside from what he’d let slip while he was threatening her, but she had her suspicions. “I can’t be certain, but I think . . .” she hesitated, meeting his gaze. “I think he’s the man who shot my father.”

Hamish gave a slow nod. “Can you tell me why you think so?”

“He knew who I was, Hamish. I think he recognized me as Rory’s daughter on the first night we arrived in Tongue, and he’s been watching us ever since.”

“Yes. I think so, too. I’m certain he followed us to the ruins today.” He gave her a brief smile. “There are no coincidences.”

“No, there aren’t. He told me he’s been waiting for months for one of the MacLeods to return to Tongue and finish what Rory started.”

“Months,” Hamish repeated.

“Yes. He must have seen my father here five months ago when he came to retrieve the treasure. I think he recognized him as the infamous smuggler Rory MacLeod and decided to see what might come of following him.”

Hamish thought this over. “If you’re right, and he did follow Rory to the castle ruins, he would have known the treasure was there already. Why not just take it five months ago? And why bother to follow us today?”

“I wondered the same thing, at first.” It had puzzled her, but in the end, she knew Rory better than she ever dreamed she had.

“I don’t think he ever did follow Rory to the castle ruins.

I think Rory removed the treasure from underneath the cairn days before that blackguard ever realized he was in Tongue and had already hidden it in another location. ”

“A second location?” A small smile rose to Hamish’s lips. “That would have been a damned clever way to confuse anyone who happened to be following him.”

She smiled. “Diabolically clever, yes. I think he moved the treasure as soon as he arrived in Tongue, finished whatever other business he had here, then when he was ready to return to Dunvegan, he went back to fetch it.”

“That blackguard from today must have followed him then . He shot Rory, intending to steal the treasure from him, but Rory got away from him.”

“Yes, and I daresay that man has been searching the second location these past five months for a treasure my father had long since absconded with. It would have been just like Rory to move the treasure from one place to another. He’d been doing the same thing with his stolen contraband for years.”

“What else did the man say?” Hamish’s fingers tightened around her hand. “Did he confess to shooting your father?”

“Not in so many words, but he said he . . .” Her voice was shaking, and she paused to take a deep breath. “He said he wasn’t a crack shot, but that he was handy with a blade. H-he shot my father, Hamish.”

“Shhh. I know. I know, sweetheart.” He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss on her palm. “He’s a thief and a murderer, and the Crown will make quick work of him. You revenged your father today, Cat.”

“We did. We revenged him together, Hamish.”

He smiled. “So, we did.”

They sat there for some time, their fingers entwined, and let the bedchamber darken around them. Finally, she stirred and fetched the signet ring from Hamish’s coat pocket and held it out to him. “It belonged to my great-grandfather. My father treasured it.”

He took it and studied the crest. “Why do you think he left it in place of the treasure?”

“Because he knew someone would eventually find the bag buried under the cairn, and he wanted everyone to know Rory MacLeod had been there, and he’d fooled them all.”

He handed the ring back to her with a shake of his head. “Rory confounded them to the end, didn’t he?”

“Yes. That was my father, a surprise to the very end.”

Dear God, what a trial he’d been.

How dearly she’d loved him, and how dearly she loved him still.

“And the treasure remains lost,” Hamish murmured, the smile once again on his lips. “God only knows what he did with it.”

“It will turn up one of these days, at the least convenient time, and in the last place we ever would have thought to look for it.”

“I would expect nothing less of the celebrated Rory MacLeod. But you never told me how you managed to find the bag.”

“The cairn. There was a picture of it among his drawings. I turned to come back up the hill to fetch you, and there it was, as plain as day. It’s rather astonishing I stumbled over it as I did, but as soon as I saw it, I knew.”

“His papers weren’t as disorganized as we thought, then.”

She laughed. “No, they were, but I think I . . . well, I knew my father, better than even I realized. That treasure was buried here in Tongue, just as we thought it was.”

“A cairn, of all things.” Hamish gazed down at their entwined fingers, then turned her palm up, placed the signet ring in the center of it, and closed her fingers around it. “This is yours now.”

His voice was a bit rough. When she looked into his eyes, the expression in those deep blue depths made her breath catch, and all at once she didn’t know what to say or do. So, she snatched up the damp cloth and ran it over his palm again. “I think I’ve got most of the nettles out.”

“Yes, I think so. Thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do, my lord, after you saved my life.” She cast a shy glance at him, but looked quickly away again, her cheeks heating.

He caught her chin between his fingers and raised her face to his. “I have no doubt you’d have found a way to save yourself, one way or another, Cat.”

Yes, perhaps she would have, but this time, she hadn’t had to do that.

Because he’d been there. Not just today, but almost from the moment he arrived at Castle Cairncross. Since the night the third lugger had come, he’d been by her side through all of it. She’d never had that before, and it was lovely, really, to have someone always by your side.

No. Not just someone, but him .

He’d lied about the first lugger, yes, but it was one misstep amongst the dozens of kindnesses he’d done for her. That should have been her first thought, the moment he’d told her the truth.

That it hadn’t been, made her ashamed of herself.

She didn’t want to go through the rest of her life nursing all the little injustices done to her and ignoring all the truth and goodness in her life, and all the gifts she’d been given.

Like Hamish.

She didn’t want to bear him a grudge for the one mistake he’d made. She’d never wanted to become the sort of lady who had a small, hard, suspicious heart.

And she didn’t have to be. It was never too late to become the person you’d always wanted to be. It was really that easy, wasn’t it? How strange that it had taken her all this time to learn that the best way to forgive was to simply make up her mind to do it.

“I don’t want your gratitude, Cat.” He drew closer, his gaze holding hers. “You know that, don’t you? I want . . .”

She waited, suddenly breathless. “Yes?”

He met her gaze, his eyes as soft as dark blue velvet, like a sky at midnight. He only looked at her that way, with that softness in his beautiful eyes.

Why had it taken her so long to notice that?

“I want your love, Cat. I want your heart for my own. I want you , more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I know I lied to you, and hurt you, but I’ll do anything to earn your forgive—”

“Shh.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “There’s nothing to forgive, Hamish. I love you, too, so much. I confess I didn’t know it at first, but I should have. My mother used to say a lady could learn all she needed to know about a man by looking into his eyes.”

He traced her lips with his fingertip. “What do you see when you look into my eyes, my love?”

When she looked into his eyes . . . oh, there was no single answer to that question.

She saw the man who’d donned her father’s hat and coat and haunted her castle to save her and her sisters.

The man who’d taken her on this journey with him, even after she’d lost any hope of going.

The man who’d protected her from Donigan’s henchmen, taking a blade to his throat, for her .

The man who’d learned the Latin name for red poppies, just to please her.

The man who kissed her with everything he had, and everything he was, and held her as if she were the most precious thing he’d ever had in his arms.

She gazed at him, her heart stuttering in her chest. “Everything, Hamish. When I look into your eyes, I see everything.”