He sounded so appalled she had to smile. “Why not? It will be fun.” She shot a pointed look at the brother she hadn’t been able to block, who had taken a step toward him and was leaning forward ever so slightly as if ready to attack. “Don’t you agree, Duncan?”
They exchanged a long look. Eventually she got through to him, and her brother eased back, releasing his sword. She could feel the threat behind her dissipating from Dougal as well. What she planned would more than adequately avenge the blow to the MacDowell pride, without disrupting the peace of the talks.
“Aye, I think that is a brilliant idea,” Duncan agreed. “We could all use a little excitement around here.”
Eoin seemed to be aware of the potential conflict she’d just avoided. He glanced at her brothers, as if making sure the threat was gone, before he returned his gaze to hers. “Fin meant no offense. He was only jesting. But I’m afraid he wasn’t completely forthright with you—he’s probably the best rider here.”
She lifted a brow, eyeing the auburn-haired warrior speculatively. “Is he? Then this shall be even more fun than I thought. I like a challenge.”
Finlaeie had obviously warmed to the idea. He smiled, a slow, smug smile that made her eager to see it wiped away. “When?”
“Now if you’d like. Unless you are too tired and would prefer to wait.”
“Now is fine.” His gaze grew calculating. “What should we wager?”
She shrugged indifferently. The win would be enough. “Whatever you’d like.”
The lewd glint in his eye made her want to call back her words. It was clear what he wanted. He must have read her distaste because his gaze hardened. “The spirited black stallion your brother Duncan was just riding.”
There were a few gasps of shock. The palfrey Duncan had been riding was worth what a knight made in a year.
Eoin looked like he was about to explode.
She stiffened, and Duncan started to object. “It’s not my—”
“Fine,” she agreed, cutting him off. Finlaeie didn’t need to know that she and Duncan had switched horses before the race. The palfrey was hers. John Comyn wasn’t the only one to receive a prized horse for his eighteenth saint’s day. “And if I win, I shall claim the horse you ride in the race.”
It was clear he didn’t take the threat seriously; he smiled. “Whateverthe ladywants.”
Yes, she was going to enjoy wiping that smug smile off his facequitea lot.
Eoin watched the preparations for the race with growing frustration. Bruce refused to intervene, claiming that Fin was lucky the lass had prevented her brothers from challenging him instead. Eoin also suspected his kinsman didn’t mind seeing the MacDowells humbled, even if a lady was involved.
Fin wouldn’t back down, intent on making some kind of point to Eoin about Lady Margaret and her unsuitability—something Eoin was well aware of even without the race. She was outrageous even when she didn’t mean to be. “On my knees” and “open your throat”... God in heaven, was she trying to kill him?
And the lady herself seemed bent on a course of destruction from which nothing—and sure as hell not rationality—would intervene. Still, he had to try. The yard was already filling with gawkers as Eoin went in search of her. She’d claimed she needed something from her chamber and had gone racing into one of the towers, while her brother Duncan finalized the details of the race with Fin.
It would be a sprint of about ten furlongs on the road from the abbey at St. Mary’s to the castle, starting on the flat, fertile grounds of the Forth riverbed, and finishing with the steep climb up castle hill. The first one across the drawbridge and through the portcullis would be the winner.
When Eoin reached the tower, he had to push his way through the crowd of people flooding out.
Bloody hell, it was already a damned spectacle! Word of the wager must have raced through the castle like the plague. The vultures unable to resist the scent of death. Lady Margaret’s—though she seemed oblivious to the threat of condemnation—if she didn’t put a stop to this.
He waited at the bottom of the stairwell for her to emerge. When she did, he feared his eyes were in danger of popping out of his head.
She stopped in her tracks when she saw him and quirked her mouth in a smile that managed to look adorable and enticing at the same time. The knot that formed in his chest whenever she was around tightened.
“If you are here to ‘talk me into my senses’ like you started to say earlier, you are wasting your time.”
Eoin was too shocked by her attire to form a proper response. “You can’t wear that!”
She glanced down at the snug brown leather breeches, a linen shirt stuffed into the waist, and the equally snug sleeveless leather surcoat that was fitted at the waist. She’d exchanged soft leather boots for the slippers she’d been wearing earlier, and for once her flaming locks were tamed in a thick coiled plait at the back of her neck.
She was dressed like a lad, but never had she looked more feminine. She was more slender than he’d realized, the fitted breeches and surcoat revealing the dips and contours of the curvaceous figure that were hidden by the full skirts of her gowns. Her legs were sleekly muscled and long, her hips gently curved, her bottom rounded, and her waist small. Her breasts were generous but well rounded and firm over the flat plane of her stomach.
He didn’t need to imagine very hard what she would look like naked, and once formed, the image would not be dislodged.
Eoin was in trouble, and he knew it.
