Her unrelenting hostility amused him. He much preferred a female who handed out clever barbs to someone who pretended friendship while sharpening a knife for his spine. “Are you this foul-tempered every morning, or did I unsettle you last night?”
“Ye didnae unsettle me.” Her shoulders squared. “Ye’re nae the first ham-fisted man to try pawing at me.”
While he didn’t appreciate the “pawing” description—because pawing implied a lack of skill or finesse—the way his gut tightened and his jaw clenched in reaction to her statement actually surprised him more. He didn’t want to hear that other men had been after her, regardless of the fact that he’d only known her for two days and kissed her once. The fact that men had pursued her made sense; her looks and her sharp, clever tongue made her very nearly irresistible. But even though he could barely call the two of them acquainted, her presence left him distracted and keenly focused all at the same time.
The camp women he knew were anything but exclusive. He knew that; he was accustomed to it. This was different. And the fact that other men pawed at her, with a degree of finesse or not… Well, he didn’t like it. At all.
“Nae answer to that?” she prompted.
Damnation.“I’ve been accused of many things, but being ham-fisted isn’t one of them. You—”
He glanced past her to see the end of a long metal tube rounding a corner in their direction, and abruptly he was in battle again. “Get back,” he ordered sharptly, grabbing Miss Blackstock’s arm and hauling her behind him.
Gabriel felt the startled flex of muscles beneath his hand, and then she jerked away from him. “William MacDorry, ye carry that musket pointed at the ground,” she ordered, pushing in front of him again.
“It’s fer rabbits, Miss Fiona,” the older man protested, though he immediately lowered the muzzle. “Mrs. MacDorry said she’d use it on me, if I didnae dispatch the vermin eating her garden flowers.” He grinned, a gap where one front tooth was missing. “Did I scare ye, lad?”
Fiona’s shoulders lifted. Ah. He was about to be introduced as the Sassenach duke interloper. “You startled me,” he amended, before she could begin her speech. “No harm done.”
MacDorry narrowed one watery eye. “Sassenach, are ye? Nae the one Miss Fiona sent off into the bogs, yesterday.”
“Yes, that very same one. Gabriel Forrester. Good hunting to you, sir.”
The old man doffed his cap. “Thank ye kindly, Gabriel.”
Fiona made a strangling sound. “He’s—”
“I’m joining Miss Blackstock on her errands this morning,” Gabriel finished, beginning to enjoy the idea that he’d quashed her plans to reveal his identity. She frustrated the devil out of him; now he could return the favor.
“Well, good day to ye then, lad. And to ye, Miss Fiona.”
She rounded on him as MacDorry shuffled off. “Ye ken he’ll be mortified when he realizes he spoke so familiar to a duke,” she snapped.
“Do I seem offended?” he retorted. “I reckon he’ll recall what a pleasant lad that Sassenach was, and how he didn’t put on any airs.”
“Ye arenae pleasant.” With that she turned on her heel to march up the gravel path between the cottages.
He followed her. “Very well. ‘Pleasant’ is the wrong word. But tell me, Miss Blackstock, have you thought about our kiss? Did you dream about it? I did.”
“If I’d done such a thing, which I didnae, I’d call it a nightmare. Nae a dream.”
“I might believe you,” he returned, not bothering to hide his grin, “if you hadn’t brought me trousers last night.”
“And how is that, precisely?”
“Me being unable to dress and leave the bedchamber would have benefited you, according to the nonsense you’ve been spitting in my direction. You did something counter to your own best interest, and in favor of mine.”
“I gave ye the clothes before ye kissed me, if ye’ll recall.”
“I recall every moment. Do you?”
“What do ye—”
“I jumped into the mud to save your life. In return, you sent me into a bog,” Gabriel stated. “And I only came up here in the first place because you threatened murder. I have two other estates with stewards whose letters and accounts seemed perfectly reasonable. I let them be.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I told ye that ye’d have yer figures.”
Most of the women of his acquaintance were camp followers—the occasional officer’s wife, but mainly washerwomen, seamstresses, and the lightskirts who made a living off frightened young lads away from home and facing death. She was nothing like any of them. Every time he set eyes on her he recalled how she’d looked with her muddy muslin clinging to her curves, and he could taste her mouth again.
