The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch) (23 page)

She stiffened, thrusting her plump bosom out enticingly. “I have
no
desire to marry Dougal, as you ken fine,” she said. “Nor do I want to marry you. You are both, albeit in different ways, equally objectionable to me as husbands.”

“Now I am stung,” he declared, affecting great indignation. “You have made your disapproval of me clear since you were eight years old. But, other than a too-frequent accusation of recklessness,
which
I dispute, what fault do you find in me?”

So sorely tempted was Lina to list his faults for him that she had to bite her tongue to keep the words from flying off it. Everyone had faults. She certainly did. Ian himself doubtless thought her too critical, too disapproving. He was just testing her, and she would not lower her dignity by rising to such obvious bait.

He raised his chin, jutting it as if he were still indignant. But she saw his old, boyish look of speculation, too, as if to judge whether he had irked her or not. “Do you think I cannot take criticism?” he demanded. “I thought you knew my father.”

“Your father loves you as much as your lady mother does,” she said confidently. “He is filled with pride in your accomplishments. You know he is.”

“That does not stop him from verbally flaying me when we disagree.”

“Nor should it.”

“You don’t even
like
me,” he said. “So what stops the words I see dancing on your tongue? Art being cowardly again, as you were last night?”

“I was
not
cowardly,” she retorted. Grimacing but
incurably honest, she said, “If you must know, I was gey astonished at myself then for doing what I did. Faith, but your teasing is one of your greatest faults, sir. Not as great as your recklessness, though, because…” She paused, knowing she had already said too much.

“Don’t stop there. What else is wrong with me?”

Unable to resist a blatant invitation, she said, “Aye, then, you are not merely reckless but dangerously so, because you
don’t
think things through before you act. I ken fine what disasters can result from such lack of thought, because Andrena has the same fault. Although I should not say so to you,” she added conscientiously.

“Just as you would not reveal your opinion of me to her, I expect.”

She bit her lower lip.

“Aha,” he said. “So you have already shared that opinion with her.”

Feeling guilty but doubting that she had true cause, she said, “I did say to her that a knight should never tell lies.
That
is true. And you did tell lies. You do!”

“Doubtless, you refer to the journey that Mag and Dree took with me a few months ago on my galley, when Dougal MacPharlain stopped us on the loch.”

“You told him that Dree was your sister Alvia and soon to be betrothed. So you lied not only about Dree but about Alvie, as well. A gey dangerous course, sir.”

“I view it as being creative under pressure. I had a greater necessity at the time to
avoid
danger, lass. Do you not recall what Dougal would have done to Mag had he caught him then? Since Mag was in plain sight, Dougal would likely have seen him, had his gaze not been fixed on Dree the whole time.”

Swallowing hard, as memory of that fact rushed back, she said, “I do recall that, aye. And I’ll admit it had slipped my mind. Likely, I thought of the occasion when I mentioned lying, only because that’s also when Mag threw you in the loch.”

“But you must see now that I was not as much at fault as you had thought.”

Dignity required that she simply nod and change the subject. Something deeper within her rebelled at such a tame course, though, and the challenging, expectant way Ian watched her made speaking the brutal truth to him more palatable. Accordingly, she said, “You have
many
other faults.”

Before he could protest, she went on, “I have seen how quick and hot your temper can be. Also, you take a sadly careless attitude toward rules,
any
rules. In fact, you seem to think you can break them at will and suffer no pains for it, strict father or none. Even when Colquhoun is with you as he was at Dumbarton, you take matters into your own hands whenever it suits you, whether it is wise or not.”

“Sakes, lass, you are glad enough to be here now rather than there.”

“I am, aye. But surely other courses of action existed that did not include casting your father’s needs to the winds. Treating for our release cannot have been the sole purpose for his meeting with James Mòr. Did he not also hope to persuade him eventually to release the royal burgh, castle, and harbor of Dumbarton?”

Annoyed with himself for raising the subject, Ian said, “Aye, he did hope to do that in time. However, his only
goal yesterday was to free you and Lizzie. He thought he could do it by talking, but I knew James Mòr would not let you go.”

“Had you given your father time to apply to his better nature—”

“James Mòr hasn’t
got
a better nature.”

“Aye, sure, he does,” she insisted. “Everyone has a conscience, sir. If one—”

Feeling impatience stir again, he fought it back, saying, “Lass, you should have this discussion with my father. He would agree with you. I have seen and heard of too much evil in my life not to know that a man can be sick in his soul. Sithee, I told you Dougal wanted to take you and leave Lizzie to whatever fate might befall her in that castle of vipers. I’m telling you now that he meant to do it at once.”

“How can you know that?”

“When I arrived, Gorry said that Dougal had gone down to the harbor. If he did that with so much going on, he went down to make sure his boat would be ready when he was. I’d be surprised if he meant to wait overnight. More likely, he hoped my father would keep James Mòr talking long enough for him to whisk you away.”

“I see,” she said, glancing at Lizzie, who was, Ian saw, chatting away with Muriella, both of them oblivious to his conversation with Lina or anything else.

Turning back to him, Lina said, “We should not talk about that here, sir.”

“Perhaps not,” he said, adding virtuously, “What’s past cannot be mended, lass. So there can be no reason to talk more about my faults, either.”

Lina raised her eyebrows, wondering if he believed that. How could one learn from past mistakes if one did not reconsider actions that had led to them?

“Don’t say it,” he said with a smile. “You’ve nae need to. I resist reflecting on the past, because my actions rarely look as brilliant afterward as they did at the time. They never do when the reflection hits me from my father’s perspective.”

She chuckled. “I think you fib about the dimming of your brilliance in your own mind, sir. But the rest is true, as I know for myself. Sithee, if Mam heard what you said to me earlier, I’ll soon hear her views about young ladies who linger with gentlemen on stairways after they’ve been ordered off to bed.”

His lips twitched. When he bit hard on the lower one, the echo of her own words returned, and the unintended image they had created enflamed her cheeks.

“You
know
that I meant after
I
had been ordered to bed,” she muttered.

He grinned. “Do I?”

She shook her head at him and fell silent, hoping he would stop teasing long enough for her to recover her equanimity.

Watching her blushes deepen, Ian decided that it was as well that Rob rode some distance behind them with the lads. The thought made him think again, ruefully. He would not have teased her in such a way had Rob been near enough to hear him.

Just thinking of Rob served to remind Ian that he did have a conscience. He had wanted to ruffle Lina’s dignity
ever since he had seen that she could retain it even as a captive in Dumbarton Castle. But now that he could congratulate himself that he had, somehow satisfaction eluded him.

They had left the forest behind for granite slopes. The crags loomed nearer.

With little if any thought for his motives, Ian exerted himself to coax Lina into chuckling again if not laughing out loud. He got his first smile by describing an amusing incident that had occurred at his sister Susanna’s wedding.

When he concluded his tale by describing his good-brother’s head awash in punch that Susanna had flung at him, Lina eyed him thoughtfully and said, “Susanna and Birdie
are
happy in their marriages, are they not?”

“Aye, sure. Why should they not be?”

“I just wondered because you said earlier that you had no wish to marry.”

“I do want to someday,” he said. “At present, though, I like my life as a knight of the realm. Sakes, I’m too busy with my duties to his grace to think of marrying yet, and thanks to my brothers, the Colquhoun succession is safe enough.”

“That
would
be the most important thing, aye,” she said, watching him.

Since he had not spared the Colquhoun succession much thought, he knew that it was not as important to him as his other duties. He had simply thought that Lina might wonder about it because her father had for so long fixed his attention on securing his own succession.

He had not wanted her to imagine that he was unfeeling toward his family. Now, however, he felt not only as if she had caught him in another lie but as if she had reminded him that his father
did
care about the Colquhoun succession.

Colquhoun also expected
him
to be the one who secured it.

Searching for a change of subject, Ian saw that they were nearing the crest of the ridge between Loch Lomond and Andrew Dubh’s sanctuary.

A rattle of stones some distance ahead near the top of the talus-and-scree-filled hillside to his right diverted his attention. His breath caught at the sight of a magnificent stag, poised majestically, perfectly still, staring right at him.

The beast was awe-inspiring, fourteen points at least to its antlers.

The others had seen it, too. They drew rein to watch.

The stag looked down at them, silent, unmoving.

“How splendid he is,” Lina murmured softly.

Ian nodded. “Superb. I have a sudden yearning to go deer hunting.”

A hastily stifled gurgle of laughter made him glance at her. “What?”

She was still smiling, looking toward the stag. “You sounded so sure of yourself, that’s all,” she said. “By the look of that chappie and his impressive antlers, he has outsmarted any number of hunters as cocksure as you are.”