Seduced by a Rogue (17 page)

Suppressing that thought, he said, “She did suggest that she might visit. That was when she gave me the kitten to look after,
and the laddie. She often says she will come, but she has not seen Trailinghail since I inherited the place. I warrant she
fears I will have changed it too much for her to enjoy it.”

“Have you?”

“Nay, I have tried to do what I think she will like,” he said. “I had happy visits here as a boy. It provided a welcome escape
for me now and now.”

“Did you need an escape?”

He shrugged. “I expect most lads do from time to time.”

“I would have liked a place to escape to,” she said with a sigh.

To which, without thinking, he said, “Aye, well, now you have one.”

Mairi stared at him, finding it hard to believe he would think his abducting her to Trailinghail, as he called the place,
could be anything like his having visited his grandparents there as a boy.

Meeting her gaze, he looked rueful again. “I ken fine that it is not the same thing, lass, and I did mean what I said last
night about making you comfortable here. I see, too, that I cannot keep you locked up until your father acts. But the last
thing I want is for a great scandal to spread through the dales. I thought bringing you here would prevent that, as isolated
as the place is. My people are discreet enough, but the more who know about you, the greater the risk grows. I hope your father
submits quickly when he learns that he must.”

“He will not act soon,” she said. “He has gone to the north end of the dale and did not expect to be back at Annan House for
at least a sennight.”

“When did he leave?”

“A few days ago.”

“How many days, lass? Do not pretend you cannot count them.”

“Three, then, as of yesterday, so four now. But he is often away longer than he expects to be on such journeys.”

“I’ll wait,” he said. “The risk of spreading gossip from here remains small, I think. In any event, I am in no great hurry.”

“Faith, I thought ’twas a matter of life and death,” she said.

“It will be, aye,” he said. “But I’m thinking Alex will do nowt till after Easter. He won’t want to offend religious folks
by starting a war during Lent.”

“But I must be home
before
Easter!” she exclaimed. “We are to visit my cousin Jenny and Sir Hugh Douglas at Thornhill for the holy day and go to kirk
with them on Easter Sunday.”

“Then we must see that this is all over by then,” he said.

“But are you sure your brother will wait? Is
he
so religious?”

He shrugged. “No more than most Borderers, I expect, but Alex does care about what others think. And, to many people, Lent
is most holy—no time for violence. Sakes, we are all religious when it is expedient or when we fear we are about to die,”
he added. “Nearly all Borderers go to kirk to celebrate Christ’s birth and rising. All say the grace before meat. Some even
have their own chaplains.”

Mairi’s father had a chaplain who said the grace. And Annan town had a kirk where her family went most Sundays. But like the
Borderers he described, Lord Dunwythie paid heed to little beyond his own domain. The Pope in Rome and his grace the King
in Stirling were not close enough at hand to trouble him.

Remembering the kirk spire she had seen from the boat some distance along the cliffs north of the tower, and closer to the
town of Kirkcudbright, Mairi wondered if he would take her there if she pretended to be pious. But the more she talked with
him, the clearer it became that he believed he was doing what he must. If so, he would be most unlikely to let her sway him
from his course.

“Do you truly care about my comfort?” she asked him, still stroking the kitten’s soft, furry belly and enjoying its loud purr.
Its eyes were slitted, its breathing slow and even, its trust in her clear.

“I have said that I care,” he said. “I expect, however, that you just hope to persuade me to let you do something I won’t
want you to do.”

“I
cannot
stay in this chamber without going mad, sir. Prithee, believe that. I think that my behavior last night was no more than
a reaction to losing what little freedom I had. You professed to disbelieve me, but I swear to you, I had never flung anything
at anyone, not even a pillow, before I hurled that stool at you.”

His eyes gleamed—with humor, she hoped, although she could not be sure.

As the thought formed, she felt vulnerable and much too exposed to him. Until that moment, she had felt nothing but flashes
of anger. He might have been her brother, had she had one, for all the discomfiture she had felt in his presence.

The gleam in his eye vanished as swiftly as it had come, and he said matter-of-factly, “What is it, lass? What would you have
me do for you?”

Still strongly aware that she wore only her borrowed shift and that the quilt had slipped to reveal the upper halves of her
breasts—but aware, too, that her sudden tension had affected the kitten—she drew a breath and tried to relax again.

He took a step toward her, increasing the sensation tenfold.

Whatever words she had meant to say stuck to her tongue. Her body tingled its awareness of him.

“Go away,” she said. “I want to dress and break my fast.”

“But I want to know—”

“Go!”

Stopping still, he cocked his head, studying her.

The little cat leaped to its feet on her chest. When he took another step toward her, its eyes slitted again and its back
went up. But it did not hiss or spit.

“You may leave my protector,” she said, her amusement easing her tension.

“I will, aye,” he said, and left without another word.

She heard the solid metal clinks that announced the locking of her door, and grimaced at the sound. Although she felt relief
at his departure, she looked forward to his return—
after
she had dressed.

Rob was not sure what had just happened. He frequently experienced odd feelings when he was with Mairi, similar to what he
sometimes felt on the water with lightning in the air. These sensations, now that he gave them thought, had other traits in
common with elemental wonders.

When he was with her they ebbed and flowed like the tides. They would strike when he least expected them. And when one was
upon him, the slightest change in her expression could warm him or send warning tension through him.

He had noticed the phenomenon first at Dunwythie Mains in the way she had filled his senses to the exclusion of nearly everything
else around them at the time. So strongly had her very presence struck him that he had known in an instant what an astonishing
effect she must have on other men.

He still had no doubt that Dunwythie would react as he’d predicted as soon as his lordship learned of her disappearance.

Watching her stroke the kitten, bewitching the wee devil, he had felt bewitched himself. He could scarcely take his eyes from
her slender, stroking fingers. He could feel her touch, and at one point, he had experienced a distinct twinge of jealousy
toward the damned cat.

Her smile had the power to bewitch, too. Sakes, between watching her with the cat and listening to her cooing voice, he had
nearly forgotten she was his captive. Then, when she had so wistfully said she would have liked to escape to some refuge as
he had escaped to Trailinghail, he had replied like a right dafty.

Then she declared again that although she had hurled a stool at him the previous night, she had never done such a thing before.
As he realized that he believed her, the strange connection had strengthened so much that he could not look away from her.
It felt as if some magical power had possessed them both.

The kitten had diverted him by putting a forepaw on the billowing softness of one bare breast that peeked above the quilt.
When she had snapped at Rob to go and the kitten had leaped up, ready to defend her, he had not known what to say.

He was glad now to leave the little brute with her. Only the clanking of the iron hooks as he pulled the door shut reminded
him to lock it.

Not that he could keep her locked up indefinitely. To have imagined doing so while he’d formed his plans was one thing, reality
quite another.

He had known that much when she had asked the evening before how he expected her to occupy her time.

His imagination presented him with an image of himself in her place. What the devil would
he
do to keep from going mad? At least she could hem the skirt that had tripped her, and other clothes in the kists. But what
then?

Recalling the fright her fall had given him, he told himself she was lucky he had not picked her up and shaken her. Attending
to the shutter had kept him from losing his temper, but he hoped she would attend quickly to shortening those skirts. He had
known his grandmother was taller. He had not realized by how much.

Still, he could not imagine himself sewing, let alone doing so for hours on end. Even for a woman, it must be a most tedious
occupation.

He decided he would give her time to dress and break her fast. Then he would return and discuss the problem with her. She
was astonishingly easy to talk to, and clearly found it easy enough to talk to him—even to throw things at him.

Whatever the cause of the latter tendency, though, she would have to give it up before it became a habit. No man would find
such behavior amusing for long.

He entered the great hall just as Gibby threw a stick across the chamber for one of the dogs to fetch. As the retriever dashed
after it, skidding on thresh near the fireplace and nearly sending a pile of it into the flames, Rob said, “Gib, come here.”

Gibby approached, eyeing him warily. “D’ye want I should do summat for ye, laird?” he asked.

“I do,” Rob said. “I want you to take that beast outside if you are going to throw sticks for it. And if you see Fin Walters,
you may tell him I want to see him when he has a few moments to talk. I’m going to the stable.”

“Aye, sure, I’ll find him.” Grinning and shouting for the dog to bring the stick, he dashed with it to the stairway and down.

Rob followed at his normal pace, letting his thoughts drift as they would until he decided what he would do.

His steward found him in the stable, discussing a suggestion from the tacksman that they order new harness straps from the
currier in Kirkcudbright.

“’Tis a good notion,” Rob said, nodding. “Talk it over with Walters, and unless he objects… Ah, here you are now, Fin. The
lad here says we need some new tack, so decide how much and order it. But I want a word with you first.”

Walters nodded at the beaming tacksman as Rob added, “We’ll go outside.” When they were beyond earshot of anyone else, he
said, “Sakes, don’t look as if I’m going to bite you. I ken fine that you knew about the tack. However, I do have a problem,
and I think you’re the man to aid me. First, how is our Gibby getting on?”

“He’s a good lad, laird. Me Dora fair dotes on him, so I have to take a stern tone now and now, with one or the other. But
he suits us well, that lad does.”

“Good. I’d hate to be asking you for aught else if you were cursing me for handing that fountain of impudence to you.”

“Sakes, sir, if he’s been impudent—”

“Nay, just honest and saying what he thinks, so do nowt to change it. I can manage the lad with nobbut a look or a word.”

“I’ll warrant ye can, laird,” the steward said with a twinkle.

“Now, who is being impudent?” Rob demanded. But when Walters just smiled, he said bluntly, “The problem is, I need a woman,
Fin.”

Eyebrows arcing upward, the steward said, “Sure, and ye dinna need help from me to find ye a willing one, laird.”

“Not for me, for the lass I brought here yestereve.”

Walters nodded. “I willna say I were no curious about that, sir, for I were. And I still am, come to that. What sort o’ woman
had ye in mind?”

“A good, well-mannered lass, someone like your wife’s sister, Annie.”

“Ye’d want Annie to be staying here? Nights, too?”

“Aye, but only whilst the lass stays with us,” Rob said, choosing his words.