He didn’t tell her he would be leaving her for a few weeks, and she didn’t ask why he was going. He wouldn’t have told her anyway. She would have tried to stop him.
“I see.” She turned on her heel and walked through a patch of meadowlark, leaving him to follow on Loki. “I bid you have a good trip then. When you return, you must show me this ‘trout tickling’ business of which Jason spoke.”
He reined Loki in front of her and blocked her path. “I will return you to the surgery.”
“I prefer to walk, my lord.”
Was she challenging him? Daring him toforceher to do this as well? He breathed out a sigh and swung down from the horse. One battle lost was a small concession. He took the basket from her, and he was surprised she let him. He carried it as they walked side by side like a young courting couple. Despite himself he grinned at the image.
“What is so amusing?” she asked, obviously watching him from the corner of her eye.
“I was trying to decide how long ’twould take you to acquit me of my sins and decide you will ride the horse.” He grinned down at her. “Boots are tortuous when walking,leannanan.”
She was unmoved. “Have you been to see your brother, yet?”
Looking across the pasture, his eyes squinted in the dazzling sunlight. The only sound was the soft thud of the horse’s steps beside him. “As you say, I have been occupied. I plan to spend time with him upon my return. I need to ask you not to see him, either, until I return.”
She stopped and faced him. The breeze stirred her hair and she tucked a red-gold strand behind her ear. “I see. Julia spoke to you.”
He saw the hurt in her green eyes. His voice gentled. “She is feeling protective, as any mother would. There are some who do not know you as I do.”
“They are suspicious of me? Do they think I would murder the boy? Why in heaven would anyone think me capable of—?”
He stopped her with a finger that went to her lips. “No one thinks you capable of murder.”
“Not even you?”
He chuckled. “Aye, admittedly you have attempted to bash my head in.” He placed his fingers under her chin and tilted her face. She was putting on a good show of indifference. “But not even I think you capable of harming a child. Swear to me, Rose. Do not go near that boy for now.”
“I will stay away then, if that is what you want, Ruark.”
“Only until my return.”
They walked in silence until they reached the cart path. The left branched into the fruit orchard, the right back to the main house.
“What business do you have to attend to in Hawick?” she asked when they reached the top.
“My solicitor is there.” He slanted her a glance. “Now that I am a married man there are certain legal matters which I must settle.”
The surgery was not far now and she stopped. “You mean you have business to finish with my father. Swear to me you will not provoke him.”
He laughed, unsettled by the ease in which she could read him. “I live life just to provoke the bastard.”
But his mood was a nebulous thing and he looked away from her to the grove unable to reconcile the need to gather her into his arms and protect her and his want to kill her father. His gaze found hers. “I have business with Hereford’s solicitor and with Roxburghe Shipping in Carlisle. I will be gone a few weeks.”
“You will stay safe?”
Just looking at her, he experienced a fleeting sense of vertigo he got whenever he was taking her—possessing her. “Always, love.”
She reached for the basket only to see the ring and pause. Her expression changed. “You have got what you want. Your brother is home. Have you attempted to remove it yet?”
Apparently, she, too, had assumed that his brother’s return was what he most wanted. As had he. “Many times,” he said.
“ ’Tis a shame,” she said sadly. “I had so believed it to be authentic.”
“Why do you think it is not?”
She looked around her, then toward the house spread across the horizon like a huge stone labyrinth amid the jeweled landscape. A number of chimney pots smoked over the gray roof tiles and mingled with the morning mist.
