The proper thing to do would be to suffer in silence, but Kimberly simply didn’t feel like suffering any more than she already was. So fifteen minutes later, when the noise hadn’t even lessened a little, she finally pounded on the wall behind her bed.
In response she was treated to immediate silence. She had made her point, obviously. She sighed, fluffed her pillow, and lay back down—only to be startled half out of her bed with a much louder pounding on the wall coming back at her.
Well, that did it. So much for doing it the easy way. She’d get herself moved to an empty wing—there had to be one in a home this large—but first she’d give those inconsiderates in the next room a piece of her mind. If the same thing hadn’t happened to her so recently, she would never have considered a confrontation. But she was furious now, she had gone through this just two nights ago, and because of that, she had no thought at the moment for doing what was proper or ladylike.
She yanked on her robe, nearly cut off her breathing in belting it too tight, slammed her door back against the wall when she opened it, and a few seconds later was banging her fist on the next door down from hers with all the strength she could muster. That it opened immediately wasn’t all that surprising. With that loud crashing in of her own door, she’d given ample warning. What did surprise her was that Lachlan MacGregor stood there.
But Kimberly wasn’t dumbstruck by him this time, though she found him no less fascinating. She was simply too furious for that to matter.
She glared up at him and demanded, “Have you no sense, man, to not realize how late it is and that you might be disturbing others with the noise you’ve been making?”
To that he merely raised a curious brow and said, “So the little wren has a voice after all?”
She blushed at being reminded of her earlier gawking. But that didn’t cut through her anger, especially when another voice drew her eyes to a man lounging in a chair farther in the room, the very man she’d upbraided a few mornings ago for keeping her up half the night.
“Aye, I can vouch for that,” the fellow said with a drunken nod. “A voice? More like a banshee wail she’s got. ’Tis her who screamed me ear off at that inn a couple days ago, and for nae good reason.”
“Och, well, I’m no’ surprised they stuck me in the servants’ wing,” Lachlan replied, supposedly to his friend, though his eyes remained on Kimberly. “But I’ll be settling down in my own good time. ’Tis sorry I am that you’re being disturbed, lass, but”—he shrugged—“you can blame your employers for that, inasmuch as this is where they put me.”
He might have mistaken her for a servant when he lifted her out of his way earlier in the entry hall, but unless he was deaf, he must have heard the duchess use her title when she’d apologized to Kimberly. Megan had also mentioned that she was a guest here. So his inference now that this was the servants’ wing simply because she was in it, she saw as purely an insult, a deliberate one.
Odious man. His manners left much to be desired, but then, she’d already known that, given the way he had completely ignored her earlier. But Kimberly wasn’t going to knuckle under just because he chose to be odious.
“It’s obviously your habit to make disturbances no matter where you are. But this is not the servants’ wing, MacGregor, which you know very well. I am visiting Sherring Cross just as you are. Furthermore, I am sick. I am exhausted. I desperately need some sleep, but I can’t get any with you doing your best to wake the entire household.”
“I’m thinking that wouldna be possible wi’ a household this large, lass, though I’ll allow the idea does have some merit just now, in the mood I find myself in.”
He said the last with a somewhat evil grin that brought her brows further together. Obviously, he had no intention of doing the decent thing.
That just added exasperation to her fury, enough to cause her to snap, “And I’m thinking you don’t have a brain to think with. Are you Scots truly this inconsiderate? Or are you simply so self-centered that you don’t care who you upset or disturb with your rudeness?”
She’d managed to make him angry. His sudden black expression left her little doubt of that. And he took a step toward her, making her gasp and step back. Yet he took another step, then another, then another, causing a smidgen of fear to rise in her chest, and the wish that she’d sought out the housekeeper after all, instead of taking her complaint to its source.
“So you’re thinking I’m rude, are you?” he said in a low, menacing tone. “You havena seen rude, lass, at least no’ from me, but that can be arranged if you dinna cease haranguing me wi’ your blathering.”
By the time he finished, he’d backed her right back into her own room. And he seemed somewhat satisfied that he’d done so, since he merely ended with a curt nod, grabbed the handle of her door, and closed it, loudly, behind him.
Kimberly was left standing there wide-eyed and trembling. He’d frightened her, no doubt about it. But only because she’d had no idea what he might do. And she’d let him get away with it. How smug that Scot must be feeling at the moment.
Laughter came again from the room next door. Color flooded Kimberly’s cheeks, since she was certain that laughter was at her expense. The wren had been frightened back to her nest. She wanted to march back over there and give them a further piece of her mind, she really did—yet her heartbeat hadn’t returned to normal yet. And she couldn’t be sure that ill-mannered Highlander wouldn’t manage to frighten her again.
But it absolutely infuriated her that she couldn’t deal with the situation as it deserved. And that was because the Scot was an unknown quantity, when she was too accustomed to dealing with known quantities. She was plain and simply too intimidated at the moment to confront him again.
With a low sound of disgust, mainly for herself and her lack of courage, she locked her door, discarded her robe, and crawled back into the large four-poster. A very comfortable bed, but she gave up the idea of getting any sleep in it, at least for tonight. It was still too noisy and she was still too angry.
Yet she decided not to seek out a new room in some other part of the mansion. She’d wait until it quieted down next door, thenshe’dstart making some noise. If she couldn’t get satisfaction in an acceptable way, at least she could pay that wretched man back in kind. And thankfully, he’d be on his way tomorrow. She’d overheard Ambrose St. James clearly in that regard. The Scot wasn’t staying.
8
“Did ye frighten the poor lass tae death then, Lachlan?” Gilleonan asked as soon as Lachlan returned to his room. “I dinna hear her screamin’ for help, so she mun be shocked into silence or dead o’ fright.”
Lachlan gave his cousin a dark look. “And why would she be screaming for help? I didna lay a blasted hand on her.”
“Och now, maybe ye should have, a soft hand that is. Ye’ve always been able tae cajole and seduce much better’n ye frighten, and wi’ less complaints. At least when ye set yer mind tae it ye do.”
“Wi’ lassies familiar tae me, aye, that may be true. But those who dinna ken what a nice lad I am tend tae run if I look at them wrong.”
Ranald, sprawled in a comfortable reading chair, hooted with laughter over that contention. “Nice, he says? They can call the laird of the MacGregors many things, but nice?” More laughter followed.
