Seduced by a Rogue (26 page)

Word had clearly spread that she had done something to displease him, and they all knew their laird well enough to be sure
he meant to learn just how she had done it and who had helped her. They were doubtless also certain that those who had helped
would suffer for it, as she would.

Annie ate quietly, but she, too, kept glancing at him.

Gib came in with the kitten draped over a shoulder and a mutton chop in the other hand. Ignoring the adults, he went to the
settle and sat down to share his chop.

Only Mairi seemed content in the silence. She looked toward him once, and he had to fight to keep from looking away like a
lad caught staring at something he ought not to see. He forced himself to meet her gaze only to feel a strange shifting inside,
a physical sensation that nearly brought tears to his eyes.

Had the sea taken her, he knew he would never have forgiven himself. Focusing firmly on the men in the lower hall, he noted
with some satisfaction that as they caught his eye on them, they swiftly returned to their quiet conversations.

When he had finished, he stood. “We will go upstairs now,” he said to Mairi. “We have much to discuss. Annie, Fin will collect
Gib and see that you get home.”

Mairi drew a long, steadying breath and exhaled it slowly before she stood to follow him from the hall. At the stairs, when
he gestured curtly for her to precede him, she did so without comment.

She was grateful for his silence, chilly though it was.

At least,
she
was no longer cold. Her hair was dry and loosely plaited beneath a simple white veil. Her thirst was gone, and her stomach
no longer grumbled emptily as it had for hours before he had found her. She knew his anger was due to her actions, and she
had known from the moment she looked out of the cave and saw only water there that she would have to face him.

Even so, the nearer they drew to her chamber, the less certain she was of her ability to deal safely with him. She had seen
him angry before but not like this.

At the landing, he leaned past her to open the door, pushing it wide and then putting a hand to her back to urge her inside.
Annie had left candles alight, and their golden glow danced on the walls. When he followed Mairi in and shut the door, defensive
words of protest stirred in her throat but she swallowed them unspoken.

She had not felt so vulnerable in his presence since the day he had captured her and brought her to Trailinghail.

“Now, by heaven, you will give me an explanation for this madness,” he snapped as he turned from shutting the door to face
her.

“I’ll willingly explain,” she said more abruptly than she had intended. “I
never
asked to come here, and I
don’t
want to stay here. You are keeping me captive without any right or reason to do so, and I want to go home.”

“Just how did you expect to get home from my cave?”

As he spat out the words, he loomed over her, much too close and much too large for her comfort. But Mairi stood her ground.

She had to tilt her head considerably to look up at him, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her step back.
All the same, she realized that neither could she allow herself the satisfaction of spitting her answers at him.

“When you brought me here, I saw sand or shingle along shores to the north as we sailed into the bay,” she said, fighting
for calm. “From that window yonder, I can see a sandy shoreline across the bay. So I thought with such low water today, I
could follow the beach on this side a good part of the way to Kirkcudbright.”

Even by candlelight, she saw the color drain from his face. He was still angry even so, for he said grimly, “Then what? A
lass, wandering alone—”

“I told you, I stayed at Castle Mains with my family last year on our way to Threave,” she said.

“So, what if you did? Did you think you could claim hospitality there? I doubt that Archie is even in residence. He is more
likely to be at Threave or riding round Galloway, making a show of his ability to keep all in order here.”

“Even if he is away, some of his people must know that my lady stepmother is his cousin, sir. I am sure they would help me
get home again.”

“Then, thank God the sea stopped you,” he snapped. “For of all the fool—”

When she grimaced, he caught her by the shoulders and gave her a hard shake, his eyes blazing as he stared into hers. “See
here, my clever lass,” he said furiously, “even had the tide lowered enough to leave sand or shingle near that cave, which
only a few folks hereabouts have lived long enough to see happen, had you tried walking on it, you’d most likely have drowned.
In
any
tide along any shore here, huge waves can strike hard and swiftly, carrying unwary folks away.”

“But—”

“Parts of this western shore
are
sandy,” he went on. “But much of the sand hereabouts is unstable, just as it is along much of the coast around the Firth.
Such sand helps protect us, because it shifts easily and never gets completely dry. That deters English invasion by all but
a handful of routes. Sithee, waves and the shifting sands have sucked even strong men under.”

He paused as if he expected her to comment, but she said nothing.

“Even if you had somehow made it to a firmer beach, paths to the cliff tops are steep and high. And waterfalls spill from
the cliffs on this side until fall. You’d have found it hard going even had you got that far.”

Although she believed the route she had hoped to take was as dangerous as he said it was, she had experienced too much fear
and self-rebuke in the tunnel to fear now what
might
have happened, since it had not.

So, instead of carefully heeding his words, she had fixed her attention on the man scolding her, on the strength of his hands
gripping her shoulders and the tense anger in his voice. If he had seemed too close before, he seemed much more so now, sapping
whatever energy she might have had left to defend herself.

He held her tightly, perhaps with more strength than he knew, but his hands were warm, too. He glowered down at her, still
waiting for her to reply.

Supper had apparently not eased his temper at all, and she knew that when he was angry, he was unpredictable.

With a hope that she might defuse his anger with an apology, she said, “I did not know how dangerous it could be, sir. It
was
foolish of me, and wrong, to sneak into the cave. I was as foolish as you say I was, even stupid, to attempt such a thing.
I expect that Cousin Archie would be even angrier than you are now had I reached him and told him what I’d done.”

“If he cares a whit for you, he would be, but if you think you’d rather face my anger than his, you are dafter than I thought,”
he said. “Even if he didn’t care about
you
, he
would
care what people would say, learning that a young kinswoman had walked six miles alone without heed for danger from the sea
or from strangers on the way. You live near enough the Firth to know that rogue waves are a danger. How did you think you
could avoid one of them with a sheer cliff at your back?”

“I
said
I was sorry,” Mairi said, wishing as she saw his expression tighten that she had not spoken so curtly.

“Nay, you did not say that,” he retorted. “You said you were stupid to think you could follow the shore. I doubt you are sorry
that you tried to escape.”

“It is all the same,” she said. “Sithee, sir, I have
said
I ken fine that I acted heedlessly. I know, too, that you must have been angry and mayhap even frightened when you did not
find me where you expected me to be on your return.”

His grip tightened bruisingly.

“I
am
sorry if I gave you a scare,” she said hastily.
“But I—”

“Enough,” he snapped, giving her another shake. “I want to hear no ‘buts’ from you, and no more of your apologies if that
is how you make them. Any apology that includes a ‘but’ is no apology at all. It should be enough for you to know that if
you ever do such a thing again, I will make Archie the Grim’s anger seem as nowt to mine. Do you understand me?”

“Aye,” she snapped, wanting to tear herself from his grip but forcing herself instead to meet his angry gaze, aware that neither
sheer fury nor utter submission would restore peace between them yet. “I ken fine what you mean, Robert Maxwell, and I don’t
doubt that I deserve your… your… H-however, I…”

She could think of no more to say, either because she was exhausted or perhaps because he continued to hold her gaze until
she felt an inexplicable urge to touch him, to bring him back from wherever his thoughts had taken him.

The tension between them had increased in a new way during those few seconds. Her breath had stopped and her lips felt dry.

Rob had gone from wanting to shake her to fearing that if he did not let go of her, he would break his resolve to keep his
increasingly strong feelings for her under rein. It was bad enough that he had lost his temper again but even worse that she
knew she had the power to frighten him. Still, he kept his hands on her.

Her face looked pinched and thinner. Small shadows touched the hollows at her temples and under her eyes. She was pale, and
her eyes looked darker than usual, like shadowy pools.

Another wave of fury seized him. But seeing her wince, he realized he had exerted too much pressure where he gripped her.
Angry now with himself, he released her and stepped back, saying—he hoped in a well-controlled voice, “Your shoulders will
be bruised, I fear. I didn’t think.”

“Aye, well, if that is all you mean to do to me, I…” She hesitated and he saw her swallow hard, as if the reality of what
might have happened—or still could happen—were just sinking in. Then, in a rush, she added, “I’d have suffered worse if I’d
fallen down those steps, and much worse than that if the sea had taken me.”

“Aye, you would,” he said, putting a hand to her shoulder again, gently.

“I won’t make such a nuisance of myself again,” she said.

“Sakes, but you must ken gey fine that ever since I clapped eyes on you, you have made a nuisance of yourself,” he retorted,
expressing his raw feelings for once without a thought for how the words might sound to her.

She gave him a speaking look but was kind enough not to remind him that he, not she, was the one whose actions had put them
where they were. Instead of stirring his temper again, it led him to explain further. “I fear that, from the outset, you have
unsettled my ability to think sensibly,” he said. “You make what I have done more difficult than I, or anyone, could ever
have expected it to be.”

“I have done naught,” she said, rallying. “Had you stopped to think
at all
before you snatched me from my home, you might have recalled that I am far from tractable…” With a wry smile, she added,
“I did inherit a certain stubbornness, sir, from my father. You will note that I have not asked you what he said, for I
know
what he said. But mayhap you would like to tell me how your visit progressed.”

“It did
not
progress,” he said, gesturing for her to sit and feeling oddly pleased that she wanted to hear about it, though the result
was hardly to his liking. “You were right,” he said. “I do not know what ails the man that he would consign his daughter to
stay in an unknown place with an unknown captor.”

“Art so sure he believes my captor is entirely unknown?” she asked.

He frowned. “He cannot know you are here. I said nowt to make him leap to such a thought. Indeed, I hired horses in Annan
town before visiting him.”

“You had better hope he does
not
learn that I am here,” she said. “What if he leaves his army at home and simply seeks help from Archie the Grim?”

“I have thought much about Archie,” he said. “I’ve sworn to follow him in aught concerning Galloway. But he kens fine that
I side with Maxwell in matters concerning Dumfries. That would include your father’s dispute with Alex. In time, Archie will
expect all in Galloway and Dumfriesshire to bend to
him
. Mayhap by then our various forms of government will all grow clearer. Meantime, I think he will leave Alex to settle disputes
relating to Dumfries, as he should.”