Out of all the chambers in Ravenglade she’d chosen to stay in this one—in his bed. Did he fill her thoughts at night while she’d laid her head on his pillow? It didn’t change a damn thing. In fact, it made things worse! It made him long for her even more.
He had to keep a clear head though. He had to save her and Ravenglade from Roddie Menzie. From the moment he’d read Menzie’s agreement to the marriage proposal, he’d had no choice. He wasn’t about to let her marry Roddie Menzie, or any other damned Menzie for that matter.
He swept his gaze over the trunks on his bed. The lid on one had come askew and something that looked like parchment peeped out at him. He reached for it. It was a small bundle of letters, all unfolded pages, written in clear, slightly slanted writing. Letters from a lover? He picked one up and examined it. They weren’t written by a suitor, but by Janet, penned to herself.
I dreamed of him again. I know that sleeping in his bed only contributes to his nightly visits. Yet I cannot leave it, fancying somehow that he is there with me. I am a fool, cast under a spell fashioned of emeralds and gold, and a double-edged tongue sharper than any sword. I am a slave to the ghost of a man who has clearly fergotten me. Och, how I do hate him.
This was about him—it had to be. She thought he’d forgotten her and because of that she hated him? Why did the idea of her hating him make him want to go find her and set her straight? He hadn’t forgotten her. Not even for a moment.
Damn it, this wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.
Chapter Five
Two more trips and she would be finished. If Darach was drinking with William downstairs, she had a bit of time yet. She reached the doorway and skidded to a halt. He was standing there beside his bed.
He turned, as if he could hear her heart about to burst from her chest.
Were those her letters in his hands?
“Mr. Grant!” She rushed to him and snatched the letters from him. “These are my cousin Margaret’s things, if ye dinna’ mind. She used yer chamber last eve—”
“Yer cousin.” He raised an eyebrow and nodded with her when she did.
“That’s correct.” She forced herself to smile. “Margaret. When I told her ye had returned, she insisted that I help her remove her things.”
“Why?” he asked, stopping her when she would have stepped around him to get to her trunk.
“Why?”
He nodded. “Why did she send ye and no’ come herself to fetch her own things?”
She studied him for a moment or two, doing little to disguise the flash of frustration in her eyes before they dipped to her hair clip in his hand. Damn it all to hell.
“She’s heard about yer prowess with women, Grant. She fears ye will try to seduce her when ye have her alone.” She swiped a curl off her nose and pushed past him, then shoved her letters back inside her trunk. “I told her ye could be easily subdued with a kick to the groin, but she’s a meek thing and—” She stopped, staring at the trunk.
“Did ye read any of those letters?” she asked, turning her worried eyes toward him.
“Why?” He moved toward her. “Who wrote them? Miss Buchanan, does yer cousin Margaret—have a lover?”
“Nae!” she insisted, wanting to slap that grin off his face. She turned for the trunk instead of watching him. “’Tis just that Margaret wouldn’t want ye snooping around in her things. She does not like ye.”
“Is that so?” His laughter filled her head like fine wine. “Well, I dinna’ think I like her either.”
She straightened with the trunk under her arm and swept her hair back. “I’m pleased to hear that, Grant.”
“That I dinna’ like her?” he asked.
“Nae. That ye think. I was beginning to doubt ye knew how.”
“In truth, when I rode all the way back here from Skye to save ye, I doubted it, too.”
Her eyes flashed and her lips tightened, but she managed a smile. “Ye came back to save Ravenglade. Not me.” She stepped around him to leave but he blocked her path.
“That’s true,” he said in a low voice, taking the trunk from her and setting it at his side. When he straightened again to his full height, he moved closer. So close, in fact, that the sudden fragrance of smoky firewood and something more male assailed her senses and went straight to her head. “But mayhap I’ve changed m’ mind. Mayhap I should keep ye fer m’self.”
She laughed, drawing his gaze to her mouth. “My, my, Grant, but ye certainly havena’ changed. Ye are as cocky as before.”
“Ye’re no’ the first to think so.” Letting her hear the smirk in his voice, he raised his fingers to her face and caressed the sweet contour of her chin. He stopped suddenly at the pinch of steel at his groin. He looked down at the small dagger in her free hand, poised between his legs.
