He swept his arm about. ‘All this, lass – the sea, the land and the people on it.’
Lowri shrugged. ‘That means nothing to me.’
‘I suppose it doesn’t. You are not from around these parts. I would have noticed you if you were. Do you know, lass, that your face has the sweet softness of spring itself, such mettle, such a pretty face. What a joy it would be to lie down in the wildflowers with you.’
Lowri gripped the pistol harder. The man took a step forward. She took one back.
‘Alas, I cannot tarry. I have urgent business,’ he said, coming closer. ‘Another time, perhaps.’ He walked past her with his palms raised. ‘Careful not to singe your skirts when you fire that thing.’
‘Good advice.’ Lowri pulled the pistol free of her pocket and aimed it at his head.
He clapped his hands to his chest. ‘Ah, a woman who knows her own mind. I am lost in love, my heart is yours.’
‘Keep walking,’ said Lowri.
‘I will.’ But he did not. ‘Are you sure you can use that little toy?’ he grinned.
‘Aye.’
‘Remember, you can only fire it once. Is your aim good?’
Lowri lowered the pistol a little. ‘Good enough to make you a eunuch. Shall we put it to the test?’
He gave a laugh, rough, like the roll of a barrel over cobbles, and it was almost as if he meant it. But Lowri had been around men like him before, all charm on the surface, seething brutality underneath. Her heart thudded, and her hand shook as she fought the urge to run. A man like that would be fast and strong, and running would get her nowhere. His eyes held hers prisoner.
‘You win this skirmish, bonnie lass. But you will haunt my dreams this night and flood my loins with unholy lust. Forgive my insolence this day. I meant only to compliment you, for your beauty outshines the spring. Now, I will bid you farewell, mistress, in the hope that we may meet again soon.’
He took the path inland, back the way she had come from Kildara, and soon disappeared over the brow of a hill. Damn. Now he was between her and home, and he could be lying in waitfor her when she walked back, crouching in the bushes or behind the stone walls separating the fields. Lowri waited a while as the seagulls and terns screeched overhead, the pound of waves against rocks beating in time to her heart. She could not be a coward. With a tight grip on the pistol, she made her way home.
***
Cullen rode into Kildara, tired to his bones but sporting a big, foolish grin. He could not wait to see Lowri’s face when she saw what he had brought. With any luck, it might make her soften a little towards him. Since bringing her home, his hurried and furtive attempts at lovemaking had earned him neither respect nor affection. Not since that one time at Graywell had she shown passion and eagerness, her body surging to meet his. Now it was like tupping a corpse, and each time Cullen lay with Lowri, it was as if a piece of his soul withered and died. She lay there under him, longing for it to be over, and he loathed himself every time he took her. He could have left her alone were he not crushed between two awful choices in what to feel.
The first was pity, because Lowri wanted to be free of his father’s bargain, and so she pressed him to lie with her, and he could not deny her a chance at freedom. The second was desire, and that was worse. Cullen burned with wanting the lass. Who would not? Lowri was comely and spirited, with courage to spare. She may have a tongue that cut like a lash, but she had the softest skin, the most delicious curves, and he suspected she held inside a well of untapped passion. In Lowri Strachan, Cullen had met his match.
He could not deny that he wanted the lass. His desire built up and up to a frenzy until he had to have her, whether she enjoyed it or not. Then it would explode into a hurried passion followed by the inevitable sink into self-loathing. The more he had Lowri,the less she wanted him, and the less she wanted him, the more he wanted her. He was a fox chasing its tail.
Ah, curse the lass for being bonnie and blessed with a long-limbed, mouth-watering body. Curse him for yearning to be inside her, feeling her heart thud against his own when he was on top of her. And she tasted so sweet, like no other woman he’d ever been with. He wanted to taste more of her, every inch, but she wouldn’t let him, and their arrangement confined him to hasty, shameful couplings in the dark.
Yet for all his inward cursing, Cullen’s heart leapt at the thought of seeing her. It sank when she was not in the yard when he arrived. Someone much less welcome awaited him.
‘Butcher. What are you doing here?’ said Cullen, sliding off his horse and bracing for trouble. Flint Butcher brought it wherever he went. It was in the set of his shoulders, the cruel light in his eyes, and the sneer hanging on his mouth.
‘Cullen Macaulay, are you not pleased to see me?’ said the man with his usual sly smile. ‘Last night’s haul was pleasing, though you are becoming greedy over your cut.’
‘The man who takes the risk must get a just reward. If you don’t like me doing your dirty work for you, then find someone else.’ Cullen’s gaze darted about the yard, and he prayed that Lowri was at Connie’s.
Butcher grinned, and it made his swarthy face seem warm, though his heart was a block of ice. ‘Ah, how prickly you are, Macaulay. And you’ve no need to scurry off back to Scotland and Scarcross with your blood up. I only meant that you drive a hard bargain.’ He pushed off the wall and came close. ‘I respect the show of strength. But be careful not to push me too hard. It will not end well for either of us.’
‘You didn’t answer my question. Why have you come?’
‘To give you fair warning. That last consignment cost me dear. It’s almost as if we are not friends. Now, do you not have a drop to quench a man’s thirst?’
Cullen could not account for Butcher being at Kildara. The man’s second, the surly Heap, usually did the negotiating over their dark dealings. Butcher ran the smuggling ring and rarely lowered himself to do his own dirty work.
He was just about to send Butcher on his way when Lowri came around the corner. She stopped dead, eyes darting between them. Cullen noticed her hand slip inside her pocket.
‘Hello again, lass’ said Butcher, aiming a devastating smile in her direction. He turned to Cullen. ‘Did you get a servant? We met, after a fashion, earlier this day, had a bit of a tussle, out in the long grass by the sea, but the bonnie one would not yield her name. Likes her secrets, this one.’
