Seduced by a Rogue (3 page)

She looked so small and fragile on her horse, and so extraordinarily fair that the light dusting of freckles across her nose
and cheeks seemed out of place, as if she had been more often in the sun than usual. But as he returned her disturbingly steady
gaze, he sensed serenity and an inner strength that warned him to tread lightly. It also made him glad that he had made the
effort to silence Will.

She seemed oddly familiar, as though he knew how she would move and what she might say next, as if he had recognized the soft,
throaty nature of her voice, even the confident way she held both reins in one smoothly gloved hand.

Despite his having met her just minutes before, the feeling was, he thought, the sort a man might have if she had occupied
his thoughts before, and often. He realized he was smiling—as if he were delighted to be meeting her at last.

That notion being plainly daft, he tried to dismiss it. He saw then that her light blushes had deepened to a painful looking
red spreading to the roots of her hair.

Hastily, and without looking at Will, Rob said, “I hope you can forgive the lad’s impudence, and mine own, my lady. Is there
aught else you would ask of me?”

“You are kind to explain things,” she said. “But as we are only women”—Rob saw the younger lass cast an astonished look at
her—“you would be wiser and would accomplish more, I am sure, by explaining yourself instead to our lord father.”

He would speak to Dunwythie later. Now, though, he smiled again, ignoring instinct that warned him he might be making a mistake
to press her. “You can save us much time if you will just tell us how large your estates are,” he said. “Men talk often of
the size and value of their holdings, do they not?”

The serene gray eyes flashed, but her voice remained calm.

“Not to their womenfolk, sir,” she said. “I doubt you would take my word for their size if I
could
tell you. My father will return this afternoon. You can talk with him then. Come, dearling,” she said to her sister. “We
must go.”

With a nudge of heel and a twitch of reins, she turned her horse and rode back the way she had come.

Her sister followed, reluctantly and only after a last twinkling smile for Will.

Rob watched the two young women until they vanished into the woods.

“Sakes, Rob, ha’ ye lost your wits? Ye stared at that lass like a right dafty.”

“Unless you want me to teach you manners, Will Jardine, keep silent until you have something worth hearing to say to me.”

“Och, aye, I’m mute,” Will said, looking warily at Rob’s hands.

Realizing he had clenched both into fists, Rob drew a breath, let it out slowly, and relaxed them.

“Aye, that’s better,” Will said with relief. “What now?”

“We get our horses and view the other fields,” Rob said, fighting an urge to look again at the place where the women had gone
into the woods.

What on earth was wrong with him, he wondered, that he could let one young female affect him so?

“I do think you might have been more helpful, Mairi. ‘
Only
women,’ indeed!”

Grateful that Fiona had at least waited until they were beyond earshot of their visitors before commenting, Mairi forced a
strong image of the disquieting Robert Maxwell from her mind as she gravely eyed her sister.

When his image threatened to return, she said more forcefully than she had intended, “You flirted dreadfully with William
Jardine, Fiona! You must not! You
know
Father wants us to keep clear of
all
Jardines.”

“Pish tush,” Fiona said without remorse. “I do not understand how anyone can imagine that such a handsome, charming gentleman
as Will Jardine can be aught but a friend to us.”

“He may be handsome, but he was not charming,” Mairi said. “He was cheeky and rude. And he behaved as if he thought he had
every right to treat you disrespectfully. You should never respond to such behavior as you did.”

“A fine one
you
are to say such a thing! You blushed at every word Robert Maxwell said to you.”

“I did not,” Mairi said, hoping she spoke the truth. Even now, his powerful image intruded.

Catching Fiona’s shrewd gaze on her, she added quickly, “If I did blush, I will not do so again. He wants to help the sheriff
extend his authority into Annandale, so he is no friend to us. Neither the Maxwells nor the Jardines are our friends, Fiona.
We must both remember that.”

“Aye, well, I think we should
make
them our friends,” Fiona said with a teasing look. “Surely, making friends is better than going on as enemies.”

“It is not as easy to do that as to suggest it,” Mairi said. “Recall that our father told us the troubles between the Jardines
and the other Annandale noblemen began long ago, in the days of Annandale’s own Robert the Bruce. The Maxwells and Jardines
sided with England, against the Bruce becoming King of Scots.”

“Pooh,” Fiona said. “That’s just history and too long ago to matter to anyone. This is
now
, Mairi, and Will Jardine is one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen.”

“Fiona—”

“The truth is you’ve gone so long without an eligible suitor that you should welcome attentions from a man
as handsome as Robert Maxwell. To be sure, he is old… at least five-and-twenty… and not nearly as good-looking as Will Jardine.
But you are only six years younger, Mairi! And Robert Maxwell
is
handsome. Moreover, you cannot deny that he intrigued you enough to make you blush.”

Mairi did not try to deny it. Instead, repressively, she said, “His brother is abusing the power of his office to extort money
from the lairds of Annandale. We lie outside his jurisdiction, Fiona. And as your would-be friend William Jardine is clearly
abetting the Maxwells, we have no more to discuss about
him
.”

Fiona gave her a speaking look but did not otherwise reply.

Sakes, Mairi thought as the image of Robert Maxwell filled her mind again, the man had been much too sure of himself in a
place he had no right to be. Despite his confidence, though, her father would certainly send him on his way.

And after he did, she would not see Maxwell again. That thought, although it failed to cheer her, assured her that forgetting
him was the only sensible thing to do.

Thus it was with astonishment and tingling trepidation that she found herself confronting him again unexpectedly that very
afternoon.

Rob had not expected his visit to go smoothly, because as Will had pointed out, every Annandale laird took a certain pride
in defying the Sheriff of Dumfries.

However, before Rob had left Dumfries, Alexander Maxwell had said in the stern, fatherly tone he used whenever he lectured
his much younger brother, “No less than the power and reputation of Clan Maxwell are at stake in this matter, Rob. Dunwythie
is clearly their leader, so your duty to the clan is plain. If we are ever to regain our power, you
must
make him understand the vast powers I command as hereditary sheriff, and put an end to the man’s defiance.”

Rob was well aware that the Maxwells’ power had waned for twenty years, since their loss of Caerlaverock Castle, the once
mighty guardian of southwest Scotland. He knew, too, that Alex wanted above all else to reestablish that power.

Although fiercely loyal to his clan, and understanding his duty to his immediate family as well, Rob had not hesitated to
express his doubt that anything less than a Maxwell army would impress the lairds of Annandale.

“Bless us, we don’t want war,” Alex retorted. “Use your head for once, lad!”

So, although he would have preferred to use his good right arm and a sword, Rob had racked his brain for another way to persuade
Dunwythie to submit.

Thus far, none had occurred to him.

Sakes, he told himself now, Alex himself had already tried several times and failed. So much for the power of his office!

Aware that the impudent Will Jardine would be an unwanted distraction in any discussion with Dunwythie, Rob sent him back
to Applegarth. Then, collecting the half dozen of his own men who had been watching his lordship, Rob headed for Dunwythie
Mains with them that afternoon.

Approaching Dunwythie Mains from the south, as Rob and Will had earlier, Rob had seen only the estate’s extensive fields and
woodlands. Dunwythie Hall was even more impressive. One would not be wrong to call it a castle.

Well fortified and strategically placed atop a wooded hill with the river Annan flowing in a sharp, protective bend below,
the four-story keep loomed formidably above the stone walls of the bailey and its tall, ironbound gates. Rob noted that the
ramparts commanded a view that must include a long stretch of the centuries-old Roman road that lay half a mile to the east.
It ran much of the length of Annandale.

“Mayhap ye should leave two of our lads out here, laird,” the captain of his escort suggested as they neared the gates. “If
we dinna come out again, they can report our capture to the sher—”

“Nay, for I come on official business and will meet no danger. You can all be of use to me, though, for I want each of you
to learn what you can from anyone willing to talk. We need to know as much about this place and its owner as we can.”

Having no reason to refuse entrance to such a small party and doubtless aware that no reinforcements were in sight, men opened
the gate at Rob’s shout.

Inside the bailey, he dismounted and assured gillies who came running that his men would see to their own horses. Then, taking
off his sword belt and handing it to one of his men, to make plain that his visit was peaceful, he followed a young gillie
of Dunwythie’s to the ironbound timber door of the keep.

The lad pushed the door open without ceremony, revealing a heavy iron yett against the wall behind it, ready to swing shut
if attack threatened. The entryway was just a stair landing with stone steps leading up on Rob’s left and down to his right.
The gillie turned Rob over to the porter, who told him that his lordship would receive him in the great hall.

“I’ll just be a-telling him your name when I take ye in, sir, if ye please.”

Rob gave his name as they mounted the stairs to an archway. Beyond it lay a great hall with colorful arras cloths hanging
at the far end, framing a raised dais. A cheerful fire crackled in the large fireplace.

Seated at the central position behind the long table on the dais was a middle-aged man that Rob knew must be Dunwythie himself.

As Rob strode toward him, a door near the left end of the dais opened, and Dunwythie’s fair-haired daughter walked gracefully
from the doorway to the dais. Lifting her skirts with her left hand as she stepped onto it, she had eyes only for her father
as she approached him with a loving smile.

Dunwythie kept his gaze on Rob.

The lass, realizing that her father’s attention had fixed elsewhere, shifted her gaze accordingly. As it fell upon Rob, he
anticipated a reaction. But, other than a slight pause, he saw none—not so much as the lifting of one fair eyebrow.

Amused by what he believed was rigid composure but admiring it, too, Rob returned his attention to his host.

The porter said, “Me lord, this be Robert Maxwell, Laird o’ Trailinghail and brother o’ yon vexatious Sheriff o’ Dumfries.”

The lass reacted then, biting her lower lip as she flicked a glance at Rob.

Meeting that twinkling look, he felt a reaction that shot to his toes and touched all points in between.

M
airi was dismayed to find as she entered the hall that Robert Maxwell had chosen that moment to beard her father there. She
managed to keep her composure only until the porter, Jeb Logan, identified him as brother to the “vexatious sheriff.”

Meeting Maxwell’s gaze, she knew she had let her amusement show.

The devilish man was frowning. So either he disapproved of her reaction or there was another, unknown cause. However, he continued
to look at her almost as if he were challenging her. What the challenge might be, she did not know. But that look was as disturbing
as others had been when they first met.