It didn’t matter anyway. The package was delivered, the signature sorted. She never had to come back here again.
There was no way she was ever going back because if she did he might turn out to be some crazed kidnapper. Bad news through and through.
Sure, he was drop dead gorgeous and just the touch of his hand on hers made her want to melt into a puddle and she wanted him so much she ached inside, but he was bad news with a capital B.
She felt a strange pang of loss as she drove away for the last time. What was it about him that was driving her wild? Was his madness contagious? Could that be it?
She drove home, doing her best to shut him out of her mind. If only it was as easy to shut him out of her dreams.
Chapter Four
She wore different clothes. That was what Jock found himself thinking about after she’d gone.
She was wearing odd attire when she brought that box. He had barely had time to put her out of his mind before she was back. It had been barely two hours since she’d gone and she was back. She’d changed clothes. Why had she changed?
She’d left him with a magical device though and he’d begun to think, as he looked at it, that perhaps it was a sign she was not an assassin. Perhaps she was a witch.
A pen, she’d called it. He examined the thing closely, smooth and shaped much like bone but different. There was a word written down the side of it. Papermate. What did that mean?
She intrigued him. Was she a witch? The clan would no doubt think so if he voiced his concerns to them but he was less sure that she was a dabbler in the dark arts. There was something too innocent about her.
What was it then?
He examined the pen closely, shaking it and listening for any sound from within. Nothing.
He took it apart.
Inside was a thinner black cylinder and a metal spring smaller than any he had ever seen. Reassembling the device, he took it over to his long table, pulling over a piece of vellum still attached to its stretching frame.
He gripped the pen like a quill, drawing it along the calf skin, marvelling at the dark line that appeared before him.
Magical.
Like her.
He sat in front of the vellum with the pen on the table, watching it closely lest it should move and betray any sign of being bewitched. He should have asked her more questions about where it had come from but he needed her gone.
Something had happened to him when he looked at her. Those black men’s hose of the strangest fabric, that white chemise tucked into it, her arms scandalously on show. Had he ever seen a woman’s bare arms like that before? Only in the kitchen, the cook with her arms deep in the bread dough. This was not the same.
Her clothes clung to her in a way he had never seen before. If she was there to kill him, let her try. She did nothing. She just stood there, looking scared of him, as she should, sneaking into his private quarters like that.
Her every curve had been visible and he had just begun to think more about the swell of her chest when the answer came to him.
She wasn’t a witch.
She was possessed.
It was the only possible explanation for her strange choice of clothing and odd mannerisms. For how attracted he was to her.
No one would willingly choose such masculine attire. Nor would they openly display a device that could produce ink without being dipped. There was a demon inside her.
He shook his head. Was he overreacting? Or was this a test from the Lord?
He frowned, leaning back in his chair and sighing loudly. She was invading his thoughts. He was supposed to be thinking about the missing money, not about what he’d said to her before she went. What was it he’d said?
If she came back, he would not let her leave. He smiled. He had said it to taunt her, to try and bring forward her assassination attempt. Yet now he was sure she was no killer, he was still glad he’d said it.
It had been a foolish thing to say but he had enjoyed the flash of fear in her eyes. She looked like a startled rabbit caught in the gaze of a hawk. No, more like a lamb that is cornered by a wolf.
