Page 9

He wiped the sweat from his eyes, cursing under his breath as he squinted at her rapidly retreating figure.

How could such a tiny bit of a woman move so quickly?

She was nearly at the top of the hill already.

In another moment she’d disappear among the towering Scottish pines, and he’d never find her.

Meanwhile, he was clinging to this bloody tree as if he were about to fall into a swoon.

It was humiliating, damn it.

Above him, Catriona MacLeod had just breached the tree line at the crest of the hill and vanished into the woods. Well, that was just splendid, wasn’t it? The best he could hope for now was that she’d trip over a tree root and sprain an ankle.

He straightened, sucked a deep breath into his abused lungs, and with another muttered curse, began once again to trudge up the hill after his quarry.

It wasn’t pretty, but he managed to stagger up the steep incline, the heels of his boots sinking into the soft ground with every step. They’d never be the same, after this.

At last, he reached the tree line, and as it happened, luck was on his side today, because there she was, only a short distance from the top of the hill, her face still hidden by that hood.

She stood there, one dainty hand braced on the trunk of an enormous tree, breathing in great gulps of the crisp air, her gaze on the branches swaying above their heads.

The chit hadn’t the vaguest idea she was being followed. Perhaps she wasn’t so wily after all, despite the extravagant rumors about her cunning.

She didn’t rest for long. Soon enough, she was off again and leading him on a merry chase deep into the heart of the woods. The trees grew denser with every step until the branches shut out the sun, plunging them into near darkness.

The dimness didn’t seem to slow her down any, though.

She shimmied under branches and clambered over fallen logs as if she knew every inch of this wood, until at last, she made her way to a small clearing where wildflowers bloomed in a chaos of color.

He ducked behind a tree, then immediately felt ridiculous for doing so.

Was he hiding from her? A chit less than half his size?

There was no reason he shouldn’t stroll up to her this instant, explain the circumstances—that is, that her dead father had been a thief and a scoundrel who’d stolen part of a treasure his dead father had promised to someone else, and he would like it back, please.

That was simple enough, surely?

Instead, here he was, hiding behind the massive trunk of a towering pine, spying on her like a naughty little boy peeping through the keyhole into the serving maids’ bedchamber.

Not that he’d ever done that, of course.

To be fair, she was rather fascinating to watch, although he couldn’t say why, precisely.

He still couldn’t see her face—that absurd cloak was doing an admirable job of hiding her—but there was something about the way she moved through the woods, without making a sound, or even so much as setting the branches aflutter.

She was careful—reverent, even—as if she were in the private home of someone she admired, and they’d done her a great honor by welcoming her. She reminded him of the fashionable churchgoers in London, except her reverence wasn’t feigned, as theirs was.

He edged around the tree trunk to get a better look at her as she hesitated in the small wildflower clearing.

It was illuminated by a muted patch of sunlight, and she stood there for a long moment before she set her basket aside on the ground and dropped to her knees next to a patch of spiky heather and started digging.

He watched, waiting, as she filled her basket and the pockets of her cloak before rising to her feet again and taking up her basket.

At last! He readied himself to follow her, but just as she was turning back toward the pathway, she paused, her gaze lingering on something she’d seen behind her.

Over her shoulder, he could just make out a small gathering of bright purple flowers growing in a patch of shade beyond the clearing.

She stood there staring at it for some time, then, for some inexplicable reason, she withdrew a pair of gloves from her basket and pulled them on before ducking under the hanging branches and kneeling in the shady patch.

He drew closer, taking care to remain hidden among the tree trunks, and watched as she began loosening the soil around the base of the purple flowers and plucking them from the ground.

She held each stalk carefully and set them down beside her gently, one by one, as if she were fearful of bruising them.

Picking flowers? She’d clambered to the top of that steep hill—his thighs were still burning from that climb— alone , under a sky that grew more ominous with every moment that passed—to pick flowers ?

For God’s sake, didn’t the girl have any sense at all?

Hadn’t she noticed the unfriendly eyes following her down the High Street? Had it somehow escaped her notice that the villagers of Dunvegan were distinctly hostile toward her? She was alone in a remote wood, well out of shouting distance of the village, should she feel a need to call for help.

A sitting duck, really.

Any one of the ruffians in the pub could have followed her up here, intent on doing her some mischief.

Indeed, someone had.

Him.

Not that he intended to do her any mischief. He was a gentleman, after all.

For the most part.

He wouldn’t do her any harm, but if she happened to catch sight of him lurking behind a tree trunk, she wasn’t likely to see it that way.

Tiny young ladies were, at a guess, generally opposed to being followed into a dark wood by a strange gentleman, no matter how gallantly it was done, or how politely that gentleman introduced himself.

He would gain entrance into her castle, one way or another, and once he was there, he wouldn’t hesitate to relieve her of the fortune she was hiding behind those thick stone walls, but perhaps accosting her in a darkened wood wasn’t the best way to endear himself to Catriona MacLeod.

The treasure didn’t belong to her, any more than it had belonged to Rory MacLeod, and he’d have it back, one way or another, but not now.

Not here . No, for now, it would be best if she didn’t see him.

He leaned a shoulder against the tree trunk and let out a long, slow breath, watching her as she knelt in the patch of shade, her slender back bent over her work, and liberated one flower after the next from the soil.

Then another, and another, and another, and . . .

What in the world did she need with so many flowers? At this rate, he’d be obliged to spend the night in these woods.

By the time she rose to her feet at last, the sun had dipped below the horizon. She’d filled her basket with the Scottish heather and tucked what wouldn’t fit into the pockets of her cloak, so she was obliged to carry the purple flowers in her hand.

She caught the basket up in the other hand and headed back toward the pathway, but instead of turning back toward the village, she headed away from the hill and the village spread out below it and made her way deeper into the woods.

Where was she going now ? Not back to Castle Cairncross, unless she was approaching the castle from a different direction—

Wait. Was there another way into the castle? A back way, known only to the MacLeod sisters? Yes, of course, there must be. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Castle Cairncross was ancient—Munro said it had been clinging to that bit of rock for centuries.

There must be dozens of different ways into the old place, and it looked as if Catriona MacLeod may be about to lead him directly to one of them.

He hadn’t the vaguest idea why the girl had taken it into her head to take a stroll through the woods with a storm coming. It seemed like an awful lot of bother just to pick a bouquet of flowers, but it was certainly a stroke of good luck for him that she had.

If things with the MacLeod sisters should become, ah .

. . contentious , his knowing another way into the castle could mean the difference between fulfilling his promise to his father and leaving Dunvegan empty-handed.

Fate had handed him a gift this afternoon, and a gentleman didn’t toss a gift back into a lady’s face.

He eased out from behind the tree and followed her, but he took care to tread softly and keep to the shadows. It wouldn’t do to make his move too—

Snap!

He froze for an instant, then looked down. There was a broken branch under his boot heel, and the sound of it snapping in half had just echoed through the trees with all the subtlety of a pistol shot.

Ahead of him, Catriona MacLeod’s head jerked up.

Then, in the next instant, she froze. He could see the sudden tension in her body, the precise moment she realized she was no longer alone.