A Dangerous Damsel (The Countess Scandals) (8 page)

It was too much for Rose. She fled from the room in a flurry of skirts.

Deidre and Angus watched her exit with confused interest.

“What do you suppose that was about?”

“No idea.” Angus’s ability to lie was infinitely better than Rose’s, but still not as good as Deidre’s instincts. Yet another secret to unravel. “The lad’s really missing?”

“Apparently. I haven’t seen him, but I’ve been contemplating coast lines all evening.”

Angus nodded thoughtfully. “There’s nae many places he’d go. If he’s under his own power, he’s outside. Ye start on the cliffs. I’ve a few places in the castle to look.”

How did Deidre end up getting roped into this? “If he’s under his own power, shouldn’t we leave him be?”

“Ye sent for me. I came. If ye wanted to leave him be, ye should have left
me
be.”

“I—” Damn it all. It served her right. Nothing good ever came of helping people. She should have minded her own business and let Rose solve her own problems.

Deidre didn’t want to see Ewan. She needed to find a way to ignore the attraction that flared up between them first.

“Come on then,” Angus said at the door.

Damn it all.

Chapter 11

A few hundred feet below him, waves crashed violently against the rocks. The sound soothed Ewan, who lay flat on his back watching the stars peek between stretches of fog. The breeze played over his sweat-soaked clothes, chilling him. He ignored it.

He’d hacked at the cliff side until his arms could no longer hold the pick. After that, he’d dragged himself back to the top and had lain in the grass ever since. The sun had gone down and the stars had come out, and still he hadn’t moved. There was something deeply satisfying about being tired all the way to his bones—about knowing he couldn’t hurt someone even if he wanted to. For the first time since he’d left Dalreoch on this cursed endeavor, he let himself relax.

It was due to the crashing waves and the wind that he didn’t hear Deidre until she almost tripped over him.

“Ewan?” She dropped to her knees, touching his face in the dark.

“Aye.” It was all he could muster. Deidre was a maelstrom of complications all on her own, and he’d been enjoying his solitude.

Her fist struck his chest. “You big idiot. I thought you were dead. I thought I’d found your body.”

“Ye have. I just happen to still be in it.”

She hit him again.

“If ye mean to finish the job, it’ll go faster if ye just shove me over the edge.”

“As if I could. You might as well be made of stone.” She sat down next to him. “What are you doing out here?”

“Watching the stars. What are ye doing out here?”

“Looking for you. Rose was worried when you didn’t come back.”

Remorse, along with responsibility and the rest of his usual concerns, tugged at the edges of his mind. As they crept back in, so did the tension he’d managed to escape for the last few hours. “I dinnae mean to worry her.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” There was an edge to her voice.

More tension. Deidre was angry with him. He hadn’t handled things very well at all.

“Deidre—”

“Do you know their names?” Her abrupt change in conversation confused him.

Know whose names? What was she talking about?”

“The stars you’re watching.” She stretched out next to him in the grass. “That’s Polaris.”

“Everyone kens Polaris.”

“Not everyone. And just there, above it—” Her arm stretched out above them.

“Is the plough.”

“And below is Cassiopeia,” she finished. Her arm dropped back between their bodies.

The warmth of it beckoned to him. “Deidre. This thing that’s between us—”

“Is just business,” she said. “That’s all.”

Just business. It didn’t feel businesslike. It felt like she’d snuck into his veins and filled them with fire. He burned for her. A sane man would try to put out the flames, but all he could seem to do was stoke the blaze. “If that’s what ye want.”

“It is.”

It hadn’t been what she’d wanted in his room, or back in the forest by the stream. Or had it been? Everything was so turned around when she was near him, he couldn’t tell up from down. Instincts told him she was lying—that she cared for him—but how could he trust anything when he couldn’t even trust himself? He’d scared Rose half to death without even realizing what he was doing. Maybe just business was for the best.

“What did you and Rose fight about?”

Ewan sighed. He was used to everyone knowing his business at Dalreoch, but he had foolishly hoped to have at least a little privacy at Broch Murdo. “She wants to stay.”

“And.”

“And I told her it’s no place for a woman.” He braced himself for her anger.

“You’re not wrong. If she doesn’t know how to handle herself, I certainly don’t need her underfoot.” She turned on her side, facing him. “Does she have somewhere to go?”

“I meant to take her back to Dalreoch with me, but she says she willnae go.”

“She’ll go.”

“Ye dinnae—”

“If you make her, she’ll go,” Deidre said with certainty.

“I cannae be cruel to her, Deidre.”

“She’ll forgive you.” Deidre rolled back to look at the sky. “She might even thank you for it, eventually.”

“And ye? If I made ye go, would ye forgive me?” Ewan asked, turning to look at her.

Her smile was wry. “Is there much criminal enterprise to be had at Dalreoch?”

Ewan laughed. “Nae really, no.”

“Then no.” Her hair whispered on the grass as her face turned to his. “But first you’d have to make me leave.”

“Ye dinnae think I can?”

“I think the day you try will be a very interesting one, indeed.”

Ewan wasn’t confident he could make Deidre do anything, but the challenge and the way she said it made his nerves tingle with anticipation. He fought it down, reminding himself that he had enough trouble to keep occupied for the rest of his days.

“I said ye could try yer luck with this lot. I’ll nae forswear myself.”

Next to him, she relaxed. Ewan hadn’t realized she’d tensed until he saw it leave her.

“Ye could still go to Dalreoch,” he said. “I’ll nae make ye, but . . . ye could go of yer own will.”

Where had that come from? He meant it, but—Lord, if he thought his life was complicated now . . . Bringing both women back to Dalreoch was asking for an early grave.

“Why would I do that?”

“Have ye never wanted an easier life?”

She laughed. It was a full-throated laugh from deep in her belly. “Every day.”

“So have one. It’s yers if ye want it.”

“I’m not meant to live in a cage, Ewan.” She sat up, brushing grass and dirt from her hair. “Besides, it wouldn’t be easier. Just a different kind of hard.”

Ewan knew about cages. She wasn’t right about Dalreoch. It was a sanctuary, and being taken there had likely saved his life, but he wouldn’t argue it now. There was time yet to convince them—her and Rose—to abandon Broch Murdo. He could save them both without forcing anyone.

He got to his feet and offered Deidre his hand. When he pulled her up, she fell into his chest. Soft curves met taut muscle. The air practically sparked at the contact. She looked up, undisguised awareness in her eyes. Had it been an accident, or deliberate? Her response seemed genuine, but Ewan wished he could be certain.

“Just business?” he asked.

“Just business,” she said, stepping away from him. It looked as though she took a steadying breath, but it could have been a trick of the moonlight through the fog.

But her slight stumble as she set off for the castle, and the agitated way she waved off his assistance? That was unmistakable.

***

Just business.
Don’t think about his chest.

Just business.
Don’t think about his eyes.

Just business.
Don’t think about the way he said her name like a growl.

Definitely don’t think about what he’d offered. He didn’t mean it. If she went, it would be more of the same. More fumbled words anytime someone asked who or what she was to him.

Deidre repeated the litany to herself in cadence to her footsteps. She was better than this. She had more control than this. Deidre Morgan would not be brought low by something so mundane as attraction. That was her weapon of choice, and not one that could be used on her. One deliciously broad chest was not enough to unlearn a lifetime of hard lesson.

The feel of him, though. The way he smelled like morning in a forest.

Just business.
Quit acting like a fool.

Just business.
This was how the whole trouble in Glasgow started. If she’d seen Alastair clearly from the beginning, she never would have gotten in so deep.

Alastair. That was enough to banish thoughts of Ewan stretched out in the grass beneath her. He’d offered help, too. He’d offered her an easier life. Easy always came with a cost. By the time they made it back to the great hall, Deidre was confident she had herself under control.

“Ewan, yer back!” Rose rushed forward, but stopped abruptly.

Deidre followed Rose’s eyes, watching them flit to the green stains on Ewan’s kilt, Deidre’s wrinkled skirts, the blade of grass clinging to her hair.

For the love of—it was hardly the first time Deidre’s reputation had suffered for assumptions. Defending herself would do no good; she’d discovered that long ago. She chose to respond how she always had: brazenly.

“I found him,” she told the other woman. “Fit as a fiddle. A fine specimen of health.”

Ewan frowned at Deidre.

She shrugged.

Rose gasped, but not at Deidre’s boldness. The other woman’s attention was now riveted to the top of the stairs.

The dowager countess stood there, rigidly glaring disapproval over the room. No amount of lace—and there were miles of it—could disguise posture that unforgiving.

“If I’d known ye were out cavorting with yer . . . companion, I wouldnae have had dinner held for yer return.” The clipped tones of Ewan’s grandmother rained down on them.

“Ye shouldnae have bothered. I can see to myself.” Ewan’s words were at least as chilly as his grandmother’s.

“Nonsense. We will eat together.”

Deidre watched the exchange. Blue eyes clashed with each other across the distance in a silent battle of wills.

“Fine. Deidre, how long do ye need to be ready?”

Awful man. She’d rather light herself on fire than spend the evening with this lot.

The dowager beat her to it. “I’m certain Miss Morgan would prefer a tray in her room.”

She certainly would, but Deidre wasn’t overly fond of the implication in the elderly woman’s tone. Clearly, she was not invited.

“Nonsense,” Ewan spit back at her. “We’ll eat together. Or we can both take trays. Whichever ye prefer, Grandmother.”

The dowager’s lips tightened into a firm line. She glared daggers at her grandson for another moment, before turning her inhospitable stare on Deidre. “Miss Morgan, be dressed at the top of the hour.”

A swish of skirts and the rapid click of heels heralded her exit.

Ewan nodded to Rose, and put a hand on the small of Deidre’s back. He ushered her up the stairs.

“I do not appreciate being used to bait your grandmother,” she hissed.

“And I don’t appreciate ye teasing Rose,” he said in equally low tones. “She’s already got it in her head that yer my mistress. Yer nae helping.”

“So you’re retaliating by trapping me with your grandmother?”

He smiled the wicked smile he’d thrown her way in Glasgow. “To be fair, I’d have done that either way.”

“
Misery loves company
,” she muttered. Sudden inspiration struck. “Can we invite Angus and Tristan?”

Ewan’s steps slowed. “She’ll be apoplectic.”

Deidre smiled sweetly.

“Angus’s like to shed blood, although I dinnae ken whether it’s more likely to be mine or the dowager’s,” Ewan mused. “Yer certain ye want to drag yer brother into it?”

“Absolutely. If anything, he’ll be the only one of us having any fun.”

Ewan leaned over the railing. “Rose, can ye make sure Angus and Tristan ken what time to arrive?”

The blond woman fidgeted uncomfortably in the room below. “I think Iona may have overlooked them in the meal preparations.”

“I’m sure we’ll manage.”

Poor Rose. First Iona’s displeasure, now a rendezvous with Angus. If anyone was going to have an apoplexy, Deidre’s money would be on her.

***

Ewan took in Iona’s personal dining room. It had not been subjected to the same gutting and shabby treatment as the rest of the castle. None of her rooms had. They, and the room that had belonged to his father, were the only ones to escape it.

His grandmother sat at the opposite end of the long table from him. Deidre and Angus sat to his right and left. Rose and Tom Darrow sat to hers. Tristan occupied the uneven space in the middle. It was an unusual gathering, to say the least.

“I’m surprised to see ye on Broch Murdo lands,” Iona said to Angus. Frost coated every syllable.

Angus stared straight ahead.

“I recall my husband banishing ye.” She took a sip from her wine. “Have ye acquired the habit of trespassing in yer travels?”

Ewan’s fist clenched around his fork.

Angus beat him to a response. “I take my orders from the current Lord Broch Murdo, nae the one moldering in the dirt, nor the sniveling dandy ye propped up as a placeholder.”

Rose reached a hand out to comfort the dowager, but she waved the younger woman off. She set her glass down with deliberate precision.

“Iona,” Darrow said in a low voice.

The dowager ignored him as well, choosing instead to turn her sights on a new target. “Miss Morgan—”

Ewan might make Deidre suffer through this hellish dinner, but he’d not let his grandmother take cheap shots at her. “How is it that Mr. Darrow came to borrow my title, Grandmother?”

Her icy blue eyes focused on him, as he’d intended. If she wanted to inflict wounds, let her try to inflict them on him. He was used to it, especially in this house.

“Mr. Darrow needed an occupation and I needed a man to represent this family. When you failed to return and fulfill your responsibility, what choice did I have?”

“Ye bargained me away to save yer son’s worthless life. Why would I ever come back?”

“It was yer duty as heir.”

“I have no duty to this place or this family.”

Iona sneered. “I see ye grew up without honor—no surprise being raised by that Dalreoch whore.”

Angus’s chair back hit the floor as he stood, hand on his sword.

Ewan called his name. The older man froze, every muscle radiating readiness.

“Grandmother, I expect ye’ll have yer things packed within the week.”

“I’m nae going anywhere,” she scoffed. “This is my home. Ye’ve no right—”

“I have every right. I’m the Earl of Broch Murdo.” He pulled Deidre’s chair out for her, guiding her with a hand on the small of her back, and motioned to Tristan. “Even if ye hadnae conspired with Mr. Darrow to impersonate me, which is most certainly a crime.”

“Ewan,” Rose pleaded.

“That’s the way at Broch Murdo, is it nae? It’s all coming back to me, Grandmother. The lord and his heirs get to do exactly as they please, no matter how heinous or monstrous, and ye accept it without a word.”

“Does this mean we’re not eating?” Tristan asked.