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It was the girl who’d been at the old lady’s door, hurrying after them, her basket held out to the side as if she feared whatever was in it would break.
‘Wait,’ Selina said to Ian, who seemed inclined to keep walking. ‘Don’t make her run.’
The girl arrived, bright-eyed and panting. Russet curls escaped from beneath the ragged shawl she had pulled over her head and her dark green eyes darted over Ian and Selina in several wide-eyed passes. Her cheeks flushed scarlet.
‘Well,’ Ian said when she didn’t speak, ‘what do you want, Marie Flora McKinly?’
‘Ian, you will scare her. Give her a chance to catch her breath.’
Still the girl didn’t speak. She curled her toes around a stem of heather, watching her foot, peeping up at Ian as if he was some sort of ogre.
Ian said something in Gaelic in a gentler tone.
The child took a deep breath and gabbled away for a minute or two.
He shook his head at the child and again spoke in Gaelic.
The child’s chin went up. Her eyes flashed.
‘What have you said?’ Selina said. ‘Why is she angry?’
Ian muttered a curse. ‘She’s offering us food at her father’s house a couple of miles from here. I don’t want to put them in danger.’
‘There’s only Da, miss,’ the child said in a lovely Scottish brogue. ‘And me and my two brothers. My Da would never forgive me if you didna’ take a dram with him, Laird. He’s been dying for some company and news for weeks. We’ve food in the larder.’
Selina looked at Ian. The child looked at Ian. The frustration on his face was evident. Not only did his people have a duty to him, not to accept an offer of hospitality would be an insult.
‘Very well. We’ll visit with your Da for an hour or two and then be on our way.’
Marie Flora gave a pleased little hop and a skip. ‘This way.’
She started up a hill that seemed steeper than all of the others they’d come across. Instead of heading south, she was going west.
Selina took one look at the miniature mountain and groaned.
‘Do you think you can make it?’ Ian murmured and took her arm to help her. ‘It might be better if we didn’t use your last name with these folks.’
‘Doesn’t she know it?’ She indicated the child.
‘Grannie McLeod guessed immediately, but didn’t speak your name. And nor did I.’
‘McLeod. I remember her, now. She used to live in the village.’
‘Aye, until a year ago when she didna’ pay her rent and was evicted. That was her son’s place. When her son was shipped off, she cursed the Albright name all seven ways to Inverness.’
She flinched. ‘I’m not surprised she was angry.’
‘She’s an evil auld woman. She cursed the factor, too,’ Ian said. ‘He came down with an enormous boil on the end of his nose the day after he barred her door.’
He was teasing her. Had to be. ‘Served him right.’
‘‘Tis no laughing matter. She cursed auld Willie McLaughlin and he died within the week.’
A year ago was when she had had her accident. The thought of the old crone’s curse being responsible sent prickles racing across her shoulders. ‘Superstitious nonsense.’ Yet she shivered.
‘Believe what you will, my lady.’
She huffed out a breath. Now he’d gone all stiff and starchy again. She glanced up ahead and saw they’d reached the top of the rise. Her aching calves and thighs were looking forward to a downhill incline.
In the valley below them, a croft sat beside a small burn, longer and lower than the one they’d just left and as small as a doll’s house. They had a good distance yet to go and Marie Flora was waving at them impatiently.
Worry consumed Ian. Its cold breath licked at his brain, at his gut, deep in his chest.
You abducted Albright’s daughter, Grannie had said, repeating what the soldiers had said. Are you mad? He’ll hang ye and anyone helping you. The old witch had shut the door in his face. A face that probably looked guilty, because while he hadn’t abducted her, he had spent the night with her in his arms. And he would have liked to do a hell of a lot more than that, after their kiss.
The force of what he had felt for this Sassenach girl was quite different to anything he’d ever experienced in his life—and he and Drew had sampled their share of females in their wild youth. Women far more experienced in tempting a man than Lady Selina. Hell, he’d even considered marriage to a warm comfortable widow he’d been seeing for years, until Selina’s letter had arrived and turned his life upside down.
Thank God, he’d had enough control not to ruin her last night.
But she was ruined. Somehow the soldiers knew Lady Selina was with him. Or they suspected it, anyway.
The only way to avoid it was to marry her. Acknowledging the truth was like taking a fist to the gut. He didn’t want to think about it.
The very idea left his head spinning. He couldn’t afford a wife, certainly not one of her calibre, a woman used to nothing but the best. And Albright’s daughter, to boot. But he was beginning to feel as if there might be no other option, just as Angus had suggested.
The cottage at the bottom of the glen drew ever closer. William McKinly was a proud, stiff-necked man. If he would take payment for their lodging instead of seeing it as charity, Ian wouldn’t feel so bad about accepting food and drink. But he wouldn’t and that was that.
Before he realised what she was about, Selina left his side and cut across the side of the hill, heading for a burn. Cursing, he followed, watching as she stood on the bank, looking down at the water. What the hell was she about now?
Did she have any idea how delicious she looked in her wild gypsy skirts, with her dark hair hanging in a tangled mane down her back? She looked like a lass well bedded, that’s what she looked like. Even if she wasn’t.
The constant arousal that he’d been dealing with since she’d kissed him of her own free will and a night spent curled around the softness of her curves, her scent filling his nostrils, hardened to rock.
He wanted to reach out and pull her into his arms, kiss those lovely lips and plunge into her heat. Know her, the way a man wants to really know a woman. And if he was honest, it seemed it might be only a matter of time before he gave in to the torment of lust.
Well—apparently he’d made the decision. He could only imagine what she was going to say.
‘Don’t fall in,’ he said, reaching her side.
She gave him a mock glare. ‘I’m not that clumsy.’
She wasn’t clumsy at all. She was graceful, even with the small hesitation in her step that appeared when she was tired. Small and delicate like a wee faery. And all he could think about was getting her in his bed. And there was only one way to accomplish it. Marriage.
It seemed that the seed planted by McIver had taken root.
He watched her balance on a rock, crouch and scoop the water in her cupped palms, sipping delicately as water trickled through her fingers. A sylph who had used her magic to capture him. She shook her hands, wiped them on her skirts before jumping clear.
This was the way he’d remembered her as a girl. A free spirit wandering the hills. Sneaking out of the keep to meet him day after day until he’d been thoroughly enchanted. But she wasn’t a sprite. She was the daughter of a powerful man. His enemy. And if the man had hated his family before, this was going to make things worse.
She