Her hair had tumbled loose from her time in the carriage, and with her pale pink dress and doe-eyed expression, she looked like a damsel in distress.
Magnus had a feeling she was anything but.
“Does Laird MacIrvin ken ye’re here?” he asked as he watched her small hand come up to touch her throat as though to ensure no damage had been done.
He swiftly sheathed the knife as those sharp blue eyes followed his movements. Her shoulders relaxed a little as soon as the blade was hidden from view.
The phoenix hoisted her feet onto the seat beneath her and huddled into the corner of the carriage, cowering away from him.
She may look frightened, but her fiery nature burst free when she opened her mouth.
“If he knew I was hiding in his carriage, would he not have dragged me out of it? I am a lady. I do not need anyone’s permission to do what I want,” she scoffed as though the idea that she followed orders was absurd.
Magnus suddenly had a vivid image of her taking orders from him. He imagined pinning her against a wall in his castle, telling her in no uncertain terms who was in charge. He felt himself harden in his trews as he pictured her looking up at him through those long, pale lashes, waiting for his next command.
He shifted in his seat and leaned further back, allowing her to calm herself following his rude assault.
“And what is it that ye want, M’Lady? A trip through the Highlands in the dead of night? I fear the views will disappoint ye.”
She sniffed, her dainty feet coming out from under the hem of her dress as she lowered them gingerly to the floor, keeping her eyes on him at all times.
He was well aware of their size difference; it was hard to miss in such a small space. If he could have made his lumbering body any smaller to put her at ease, he would have, but his head was brushing the top of the carriage as it was.
“Would that be so bad? I heard that your clan has beautiful beaches,” she said, tipping her chin up toward him.
He nodded. “Of course, it does. It is on an island, lass,” he stated, the same thread of amusement lacing his words.
“Oh yes, of course,” she said hurriedly. “I knew that, Laird…”
He waited expectantly as she tried hard to recall his name, her brow furrowed in concentration. After all, she’d had quite a night of it; he could not begrudge her forgetting some details.
“MacWatt,” he stated before asking the question he had been dying to get the answer to all night. “And ye are?”
“Lady Leah Anderson,” she replied, her fingers running through her hair as she pulled it over her left shoulder. A nervous tick, it seemed.
She appeared to be on the edge of leaping from the carriage or tying herself to the seat. The lady was clearly in two minds as to whether spending more time with him or escaping was the priority.
Magnus considered the scene he had witnessed between Lady MacIrvin and the Englishman. The man had been demanding to see his ‘daughter,’ who he had traveled to Scotland to collect. And now Magnus found an English girl hiding in his carriage.
It did not take him long to put two and two together. That pompous oaf was this girl’s father.
“So, Lady Leah Anderson, what are ye doin’ in me carriage?” he asked, wondering what excuse she might give.
Their eyes met and held, and he forced himself not to look away.
She glanced around at the carriage interior. “Is this not Laird MacIrvin’s carriage?”
“Dinnae change the subject. And dinnae lie to me. I’ll nae take kindly to it, what with me being abarbarianand all.”
To his surprise, revealing that he had overheard her unpleasant description of him did not embarrass her. She looked out the window at the shadowy hills on the horizon, the reflected moonlight on a lake the only thing that could be seen through the blackness of the night.
“I only hid here for a short while. I was tired and needed to rest. I didn’t realize it would be used this evening, or else I would never have climbed in.”
“So… ye wanted to have a restunderthe seat?”
“It’s an English thing, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Wrong answer, lass. I’m afraid we barbarians ken a great deal about the ways of the English and why they choose to do the things they do. I’m takin’ ye back to MacIrvin Castle.”
