“A plan?” Lenora echoed, her voice barely audible. “But Da said—”
“Your da says many things when he’s backed into a corner,” Aunt Elena interrupted, stepping forward to place a comforting hand on Lenora’s shoulder. “That does nae mean we accept them without a fight.”
This! This position women faced of possibly having no choice in their own future was exactly the reason Lillith did not wish to wed. Or one of them, anyway.
“The women of this family have overcome far worse obstacles than stubborn men and royal decrees,” Aunt Sebille added, her amber eyes glinting with determination.
Lillith felt a surge of gratitude for these women—fierce, clever, and utterly unwilling to surrender to the whims of kings or lairds. Perhaps there was hope after all. But even as the thought formed, she remembered Rory Matheson in the woods, bleeding from her arrow, looking at her with those cold blue eyes and saying he was here to wed Lenora. She was safe, but her sister wasn’t, and Lillith would do everything in her power to ensure Lenora did not have to wed the man either.
“I’m nae worried,” Lillith said, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin in defiance.
Her grandmama grinned. “That’s the spirit, Lillith. We will overcome!” she said, raising her fist and shaking it.
“Aye, we will,” Lillith agreed, but she knew she needed to tell them what she’d already told Lenora. “Rory Matheson has already made up his mind to wed Lenora and nae me.”
Everyone frowned at her, except Lenora, and then her stepmama asked, “How could you know that?”
“Because,” she replied, recalling his mocking tone when she’d revealed herself as Laird MacLeod’s daughter. He’d asked her if her sister had shared her temperament, and she’d told him no. She’d sealed Lenora’s fate, but she now had an idea how to extract Lenora from the mess she’d gotten her in.
“Because how?” her grandmama demanded of her.
“I met him earlier in the woods.”
The women’s gazes all widened at the same time.
“You met him?” Eve asked.
“She shot him!” Lenora announced.
“Ye what?” her da barked from within his solar. Clearly, eavesdropping ran in the family. Lillith knew she was in for it now, but she needed some time to think.
“Aye!” she said, lifting her chin in defiance and sweeping her gaze over the women, who oddly did not seem to be looking at her at all now but beyond her. She supposed they were shocked. She needed to make her escape now.
“Lillith!” her da bellowed.
Too late. She was good and trapped. Her da’s steps resounded in the silence before he ordered, “Ye will make yer apologies—”
“I will nae!” she bellowed in return, tears immediately filling her eyes and blurring her vision. “I do nae regret shooting that arse! I only wish I’d killed him!” With that, she swung around to dash away as she swiped at her blurry eyes, but three steps into her sprint, she smacked into someone, who grunted at the same moment Masie yelped. Before Lillith knew what was occurring, she was flying forward toward the ground to land with a jarring thud on top of a very solid person. And when she opened her eyes, which she’d apparently squeezed shut, her gaze met the murderous one of Rory Matheson.
Chapter Four
The breath whooshed from Rory’s lungs as his back struck the ground, followed immediately by the weight of Lillith crashing down upon him. Pain lanced through his wounded shoulder, but it was quickly subsumed by a different sensation entirely as her soft curves pressed against the length of him.
God’s blood. This was not happening.
And yet it was. Lillith MacLeod—the same woman who had shot him, insulted him, and loudly proclaimed her wish to have killed him—was now sprawled across his chest, her golden hair falling around them like a curtain, her face mere inches from his own. Her gaze found his, and she gasped. Her blue eyes widened with shock and something else he couldn’t quite name.
He became acutely aware of her. Her soft breasts were pressed against him, and her lips were parted as she struggled to catch her breath. Unwelcome heat pooled in his gut, spreading lower with alarming speed. This was madness. He did not want this woman. She was everything he had vowed to avoid in a wife—headstrong, defiant, with a tongue sharper than his dirk. And yet his body was betraying him, responding to her proximity in ways that made his face flush with equal parts desire and mortification.
Her hound chose that moment to add to his humiliation, leaning down to lap enthusiastically at his face with a tongue that seemed determined to cleanse him from hairline to chin. Rory was positive it was the hound he’d tripped over when the lass had collided into him.
Lillith’s eyes narrowed, her momentary shock seeming to give way to indignation. “Ye pulled me down!” she accused, her voice breathless but no less fierce for it.
“Ye have lost yer wits!” he growled back, determined to ignore the way her body shifted against his with each word. “Ye barreled into me, ye reckless woman, and then I tripped over yer hound!”
Her hound barked, and the lass flinched, her cheeks flushing a deep pink as she attempted to push herself off him. In her haste, her movements became uncoordinated, and her breasts pressed firmly against his face for one brief, torturous moment. Rory nearly choked, his body’s reaction now impossible to disguise or deny.
Their gazes locked as she finally managed to lift herself enough to look down at him properly. Something flickered in the depths of those stormy eyes—recognition, followed by the faintest hint of smugness that made his blood boil in a way that had nothing to do with anger.
