She looked from Nathaniel to Patrick and back. She felt her mouth fall open, and she was powerless to do anything about it.
They could have been twins.
Patrick shut her door and nodded toward his house. “I’m cooking tonight, which everyone should appreciate. My lady wife is brilliant at it, of course, but I like the challenge of serving up something edible myself. Emma, after you. Coming, Master Nathaniel?”
Emma looked from one to the other again, only for a different reason. She had no idea how to read Scottish men, but there was something going on. It looked a bit like an eighteenth-century fencing match, only there were no swords involved. She wanted to hold up a finger and ask for a pause in the events swirling out of control around her, but she had the feeling that it wouldn’t do a damned bit of good.
There was something extremely strange going on.
But there was dinner in the offing, so she supposed she would let Patrick and Nathaniel have at each other and see if there was something she couldn’t do in a different room. If Patrick was cooking and Madelyn was chasing children,maybe a seat in front of the fire in the great room might be just the place for her.
She walked with them to the hall, followed Patrick inside, then handed him her jacket when he asked for it. Before she could escape with him to the coat tree, Nathaniel had caught her by the elbow. She decided the very least she could do was give him a cool look, which she indulged in without hesitation.
He was looking at her with the most serious expression she’d seen on his face to date.
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She smiled politely and eased her arm away. She wasn’t going to get hurt, because she wasn’t ever going to get herself into something she couldn’t get herself out of. She had a misspent youth full of those kinds of lessons, and it was about time she learned them.
“I’ll be fine.”
And she would be. She would borrow Patrick’s car for a couple of days, then she would get the hell out of town, not because Nathaniel MacLeod had told her to, but because she wanted to. Men with ridiculously expensive sports cars, several lawyers at their disposal, and gaggles of gold diggers stalking them were definitely not the sort of men she wanted to get involved with.
Not on her life.
She supposed if she repeated that enough times over the next hour or two, she might manage to convince herself of it.
Chapter 14
Nathanielwas too tired for swordplay, verbal or otherwise. What he wanted to do was go home and sleep for a solid week, and that only after having seen Emma Baxter off to somewhere where he wasn’t.
Damn it anyway.
Dinner had been interesting. Patrick’s wife, his daughter, and even the wee bairn in the high chair had spent most of the meal looking from him to the lord of the hall and back as if they were seeing double. Emma had ignored him. The roast had been delicious.
He was losing his mind.
At least Emma’s fury was something he could wrap what was left of his mind around. He had wanted to send her off pleasantly. He’d made a great hash of it.
He was, as he’d noted before, tired. And perhaps a bit of an arse.
He tried to focus on things he could understand, like memories of supper. It had been very good and Patrick MacLeod was an excellent chef. It might have been a pleasure to chat with him over the chopping of veg if the man hadn’t been sizing him up the entire time.
He had returned the favor, studying the good lord of Benmore whilst they were about the labor of ingesting his very fine supper and then coming to the conclusion that Stephen de Piaget was absolutely daft. It simply wasn’t possible that the rumors that went round the pub down the way about the man sitting across from him were true. Patrick MacLeod was not amedieval clansman, and neither was his brother James nor his cousin Ian. They were simply men who owned castles and estates and wanted to bring much-needed funds into the village coffers. Good men, obviously, and concerned about their neighbors and friends, but just men.
Surely.
“Need help with the bairns, Maddy?” Patrick asked.
“I can help,” Emma volunteered.
The lady Madelyn seemed happy for an extra hand, though Nathaniel had to admit he wished he’d jumped at the opportunity first. Now he was going to be trapped with a man he definitely wanted to keep safely in theNot Medievalcolumn of his acquaintance ledger.
“Enjoy your meal?” Patrick asked politely.
“Very much, thank you.”
Patrick pushed away from the table and rose. “A whisky in front of the fire?”
