“See you, there has been an error.” She looked at him, escaping tendrils of her hair dancing on the night wind. “My sister was duped. I did not send for you. My companion did. Lady Rhona. My dearest friend and worst enemy.”
“Your worst enemy?” Marmadule lifted a brow, noted the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes, the shadows beneath them. “I think not, my lady. She surely meant you no harm.”
“She stirs mischief without thinking of the consequences.”
Giving in to an irresistible urge to be near her, Marmaduke pushed away from the merlon and went to stand before her. “Are the consequences so unpalatable? I have been here but a few hours and can already see you are in grave need.”
For the longest moment she said nothing, her gaze again fixed on the sea. When she turned back to him, her brow creased. “You must understand,” she began, her voice steady. “I did not want a champion. Nor am I desirous of a man.”
“And now your friend has thrust you into a situation where you must suffer both.”
She nodded, a flash of anger sparking in her beautiful eyes. But she said nothing. She just stared at him, her chin lifted in clear objection to everything he was and had hoped to do for her.
With her.
Hoping the dark hid the muscle jerking in his jaw, Marmaduke fought the overpowering urge to pull her into his arms, lower his mouth to hers and banish her cares with a kiss.
A fierce and claiming one – the kind he hadn’t given any woman in more years than he cared to admit.
“Lady Caterine, I know I am not a man to turn heads and steal hearts,” he said at last, the words coming from the devils that rode his back and not his own true self.
A self still handsome and unmarred.
“But scarred or nay, English or not, error or otherwise, your sister asked me to champion you and I shall,” his true self said. “I gave Lady Linnet my word. Denying her would be as impossible as not drawing breath.”
“Aye, impossible,” she agreed, surprising him. “My sister can be most persuasive.”
“There is little I would not do for her, that is true,” Marmaduke admitted. “And now I am here.”
“So you are.” She peered at him, the words she hoped he’d say almost blazing across her forehead.
Her face revealed all, letting him know that she’d expected him to declare it was dreadful of her friend to meddle, that he regretted coming in error, and would undo the younger woman’s wild scheme by riding away on the morrow.
A shame he couldn’t oblige her.
Instead, rather than announce his swift departure, he watched her with a steady gaze as she digested his vow to champion her whether she wanted him to or not. And that, thanks to her friend’s interference, she had little choice but to accept his help.
Aid he was honor-bound to give her.
Never would he abandon a lady – peasant or princess – in such dire need.
And it couldn’t be denied that his leaving would only hurl her into more troubling waters.
They both knew that.
There was only one other matter to address, much as he wished it wasn’t necessary.
Sadly, it was, so he glanced briefly at the heavens, so bright with stars. Then he tamped down the last bits of hope that had stirred in him since arriving at Dunlaidir.
That done, he turned back to her. “Lady, I wished to speak privately with you because I must inform you there is one request your sister made of me which I cannot fulfill,” he said, trying not to see how the lingering Englishry of his voice tightened her lips, chilling her whole demeanor.
She drew herself even straighter, lifted a brow. “What request of Linnet’s might that be?”
“My shoulders are good and wide, Lady Caterine. Well able to bear any burdens troubling you,” he said, more disturbed by her chilly reception than was good for him. “Any and all burdens save one. I will not pose as your husband.”
Something indefinable flashed across her face, and before it could blossom into something he’d rather not see, he clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing the narrow breadth of the wall-walk, his gaze on the far horizon.
Anywhere but on her face.
