Amanda Scott (28 page)

Affecting a casual tone, she said, “As you have already agreed that it was a good thing I was there for Isobel, I expect you are no longer even angry, so we can talk about something else.”

“Aye, sure, if you like.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?” she demanded indignantly.

He looked at her then, and his piercing gaze seemed to strike a chord deep inside, one that vibrated through her as if her blood had begun to hum. That look was discomfiting, to say the least, but even as she squirmed on her saddle, she assured herself that she would, under no circumstances, look away.

“Do you really want to know what I’m thinking?” he asked.

He held her gaze, and her voice seemed to have stuck somewhere in her throat, so she just nodded.

“I’m thinking it’s a good thing you decided to put on that skirt before all these men and the others we left behind us saw you in those damnable leggings.”

She swallowed, trying to think of a reply, and decided to see what he would say to the truth. “I thought, most likely, you would put it on for me if I defied you.”

“I’m glad to hear that you were thinking clearly, for once,” he said.

Nettled, she said, “You would have, would you not?”

“Aye, sure, I would,” he agreed. “Moreover, I’d have had to do it in full view of everyone, lest someone accuse me of improper behavior toward you.”

“And what, pray, could be more improper than forcing me to change my clothing in front of all your men?”

“A number of things,” he said.

“Name one.”

“Stripping off those damnable leggings and giving you the skelping you so richly deserve before that same audience,” he answered promptly.

“That would be worse,” she agreed, feeling her cheeks burn at the image his words brought to mind.

“Pax, lassie?”

“Aye,” she said with welcome relief.

“In truth, you frightened me witless,” he said quietly.

“You made me angry when you threatened to send me to your aunt whilst you went to find Adela. I was afraid you would get to her too late, and I knew you would follow me. But if we are to speak the truth, mayhap you should know that I had nearly changed my mind when they caught me. They must have been watching for someone
to stray far enough for them to snatch.” Truth or not, she would not tell him that Waldron’s greeting to his men indicated that he had sent them to find her.

“I hope we can always speak the truth to each other, lass.”

She forced a weak smile as she said, “There is no ‘we,’ sir. Adela still needs you, so if you still believe in honor…” She let the word speak for itself.

“She is your sister,” he said. “So we will see much of each other, even if she does agree that she and I should marry. But I do not believe she will. You heard her yourself. She urged him to flee. You want to think she feared he was going to harm the bairn, but I cannot agree. He is most persuasive, lass. I warrant he has persuaded her to his way of thinking about things.”

“She wouldn’t!” Sorcha exclaimed. “You do not know her as I do.”

“No,” he said. “That’s true, and you are right to remind me of my duty.”

For once, she did not want to hear that she was right. She felt a clenching sensation near where she suspected her heart lay, not to mention a sudden prickling of tears in her eyes. And she could think of nothing to say.

As the silence between them lengthened, Hugo glanced at her and saw that she had taken her lower lip firmly between her teeth. Her eyes swam with tears, making him want to kick himself for reminding her of what Adela had done.

He had not intended to take her to task at all, but it
seemed as if the lass had only to open her mouth to stir some demon in him to correct her.

He could not count the times since she had walked into his life that he had wanted to throttle her or shake her or kiss her. And he certainly had had no intention of falling in love with her, but that was exactly what he had done.

The knowledge had struck him hard as he had watched her tending Isobel’s baby. But he realized straightaway that he had suffered pangs of it long before that, and now he did not have the slightest idea what he was going to do about it.

Instinct had warned him from the first that the little skelpie stirred his senses as no other woman had ever done, although the first day she had stirred only a strong desire to put her across his knee. After all, for a significant part of his grace’s installation day he had sported her handprint on his face for all to see. No one could blame him afterward for believing that the only reason she stirred his blood was that she could so easily ignite his fury.

To be sure, she was as beautiful as any of her sisters if not more so, and when she was angry, the way her eyes sparked flames one moment and turned stony gray the next fascinated him. Her temper was another matter, though. It had not escaped his notice that she had stood up to Waldron just as she did to him, so doubtless she lacked common sense or even a simple sense of self-preservation. But he could not deny that he had been proud of the way she had ignored the tension between them, and their weapons, and had demanded their help for Isobel.

In short, although he condemned her impulsive, defiant behavior and would continue to do so, he recognized in her not only a generous spirit but also a sense of honor and duty that he found wholly admirable. She was untrained and impetuous, but her belief in her duty to her family seemed instinctive and natural, rather than a product of any training, and so far she had managed to come through her adventures unscathed and undaunted. At least, she had until Adela had run away with Waldron, betraying all that Sorcha had tried to do for her.

Afterward, though, Sorcha had set Adela’s treachery aside to devote her attention to Isobel’s needs and those of her bairn. And Hugo had no doubt that had he not been there, had she and Isobel been all alone, Sorcha would have delivered the wee laddie by herself, calmly and with complete success.

Thinking of Isobel reminded him of yet another thing he liked about Sorcha. His cousin’s lady, despite her airy charm and delicate femininity, had a habit of shading the truth when the whole seemed unpalatable to her. From all he had seen, Sorcha lacked that habit altogether. She said what she thought, and her tongue was even sharper than Isobel’s could be, but Hugo preferred straight talk himself, and would not have had Michael’s tolerance for Isobel’s prevarications.

Glancing at Sorcha again, he saw that she had recovered her composure and decided he would do better not to apologize for reminding her of Adela’s perfidy. Although she had defended her sister, she had not persuaded him that Adela had acted only to protect Isobel and the bairn, let alone Sorcha and himself as well. Adela had
sounded too fervent, too concerned for Waldron’s safety to have spared thought for anyone else’s, including her own.

She had to know how dangerous his cousin was. Waldron was incapable of hiding that part of himself from others, especially from any woman he held under his control. With an army in view, as it had been, Adela had to have known that she need only hide long enough and her ordeal would end. The only possible conclusion was that she had gone with Waldron willingly.

Sorcha would recognize the truth soon enough, though. He had no need to convince her, and it would be kinder to let her come to it in her own good time.

Noting that she had herself in hand again, he casually mentioned Michael’s undoubted delight when he learned that he had an heir, and his own intention to purchase Black Thunder from Hector if the man would allow it. Their conversation thus progressed until they were fully in charity with each other again.

She rode astride easily and liked a man’s flat leather saddle, as her sisters did. Isobel had once told him that all eight of Macleod’s daughters had ridden astride since childhood, with or without saddles.

He liked watching her but soon found himself imagining away the skirt and seeing her again in the damnable leggings. The way they outlined her smooth thighs and rounded calves, not to mention other rounded parts, stirred his imagination until he realized she was regarding him quizzically, and reined himself up short.

“What is it, lass?” he said. Hearing the gruffness of his tone, he cleared his throat, trying to banish the vision that still warmed his imagination and other things.

“I asked you how much farther it is to Roslin,” she said, but the dimple below the left corner of her mouth winked at him, and her beautiful eyes danced.

The bubble of laughter in Sorcha’s throat lingered even after Hugo had collected his wits. He looked around as if to orient himself and said they ought to reach the castle within the hour.

He had been gazing at her as if he had never seen her before, and the look in his eyes had warmed her through and through. Really, she thought, when he was being civil, he was a most amusing, informative companion.

That he admired the Sinclair brothers, afforded tremendous respect to the aunt he described unabashedly as terrifying, and loved Roslin Castle almost as much as his own home at Dunclathy was clear in every word he uttered in describing them.

He spoke of his sisters, showing respect for the eldest, Eliza, and warmth for the younger ones, Kate and Meg. He seemed scarcely to know them, though, and she felt sorry for that. Family was important. A man should know his sisters.

She envied him his travels though, for not only had he seen much more of Scotland than she had, but he had traveled to Paris, France, and to Spain and exotic countries that her aunt Euphemia and Ian Dubh, who was Cristina’s father-by-marriage, had described to her in tales from their extensive studies. She suspected at one point that Hugo might have traveled even farther, but when he had seemed to misspeak, he deftly
changed the subject, and she decided she must have imagined it.

When the baby wakened and squalled, they paused to rest while Isobel settled him to nurse, but when he had taken his fill, they rode on again.

Soon afterward, they entered dense woodland and followed a cart track until they came to an arched stone bridge across a tumbling river. On a high promontory beyond it, outlined against the blue sky and a few floating, puffy white clouds, stood the rounded towers and square southwest-corner keep of Roslin Castle.

The trail led back and forth up the hill until it came to a narrow land bridge, where the earth on both sides fell steeply away to the river thirty feet below. As their party made its way single file across to the entrance gates, Sorcha realized that the river North Esk flowed nearly all the way around the castle’s steep promontory.

“Henry has begun to extend the wall and parts of the keep,” Hugo said. “The work can be noisy, but with the bairn and Isobel needing rest, and Michael coming home, I’ll have good reason to order a period of peace whilst we’re all here.”

The gates stood open, and when they rode into the flagstone-paved courtyard, a tall woman in a long sable-trimmed red kirtle, with gold lacing and a bejeweled, linked belt set low on her hips, swept gracefully down the stairs from the main entrance of the keep to meet them. The white veil she wore ruched back from her face flowed softly to her shoulders, over which she had flung a dark-green mantle against the late afternoon chill. Intricately plaited dark hair showed beneath the veil as it fluttered gently with her movements.

“You are about to meet my aunt,” Hugo murmured. “Mind your manners.”

Sorcha, more aware than she had thought she could be of her shabby attire, gave thanks to God that she was not wearing her leggings and saffron shirt.

She straightened on her saddle and held her head high.