“That, at least, is helpful.”
The horse nickered and tossed his head behind them, and they walked on in silence. John watched the two dogs scamper ahead of them, then turned his gaze to his aunt. She had a stern face, lined with years of bitterness and hostility. As a child he had always found her intimidating, and he continued to feel that way now, even though he was earl.
He stopped on the path. “Aunt Eleanor, I must be frank.”
She stopped and turned, and the dogs circled back to wait at her side.
“You know how I feel about Catherine,” he said. “I want nothing more than to bring her home, safe and unharmed, but I cannot accomplish that if I do not know the whole story. For that reason, it must be said… I sense there is something you are not telling me.”
His aunt regarded him with chilly disdain. Her lips curled into a thin, hard line, and the dogs began to bark and snarl. She lifted her walking stick and jabbed him with it, hard in the chest, so that he was forced to take a step back.
“There isnothing,” she said harshly, “that you need to know. Leave me be now. I must walk.”
With that she stalked off, and the dogs growled at him viciously before turning to follow her, tails wagging in the morning sun.
John mounted his horse. The corner of his mouth twisted in annoyance. Catherine was out there somewhere, most likely in the clutches of a brutal Highlander with dangerous intentions. John had seen what the dirty savage tried to do to her in the stone circle, and he’d heard the particulars of the Highlander’s violent escape from the prison coach.
Meanwhile Catherine’s inheritance was at risk as well. If anything happened to her, the funds would be sent to Edinburgh, forfeited to the Jacobite cause.
That John could not allow.
As he galloped off in the other direction toward the manor house, he wondered if it was possible to physically shake the truth out of his wretched old aunt. Someone needed to stand up to her for once. And those exasperating little dogs, too.
Chapter Ten
On the night that followed Raonaid’s strange awakening from the dream, Lachlan could not sleep.
Throughout the day, he had watched her with silent, broody fascination, becoming less consumed by his physical desire for her and more curious about her peculiar state of mind. She had mentioned on more than one occasion that she felt as if she were going mad, and had even referred to herself as a lunatic.
He’d always known Raonaid to be deranged and lacking in what he would call anormalhuman conscience, but somehow the woman before him—wrapped in a heavy blanket and sleeping in the grass—no longer fit that description.
After two full days of riding with her, he no longer felt that she was the embodiment of pure evil. He felt quite the opposite, in fact, and far less certain that she was lying to him about her memory loss. All he wanted to do now, as he sat awake by the fire and watched over her while she slept, washelpher, and it confused the hell out of him.
How could he possibly feel this way about Raonaid, the oracle, after loathing her for years, hunting her down with an obsession that bordered on madness, and giving up everything—everything—to achieve some sort of vengeance against her?
Suddenly she stirred and whimpered softly in the night. The sound of her voice was velvety and erotic.
Lachlan sat forward, resting an elbow on a knee, watching as she rolled gracefully onto her back.
A light breeze whispered through the grasses and fluttered the bottom of her blanket. He felt a shiver of need rush through him, though he didn’t want to bed her. Not exactly. He just wanted to lie with her and hold her as he had the night before. To feel her soft, lush body against his own, to smell her hair. To experience the intimacy and closeness. It all seemed like a dream to him now. He had not known anything like it in such a long time.
Raonaid lay very still and quiet in the dark chill of the night; then suddenly, without warning, she sat up—her back straight as a spear.
Lachlan did not speak. He remained utterly still, though his heart began to pound like a wild thing in his chest.
Tossing the blanket aside, she rose to her feet, gathered her skirts in her fists, and started walking away from the camp.
“Wait!” he quickly said, shaking himself out of his stupor and rising to follow. “Where are you off to? It’s dark, lass. You’ll get lost.”
Ignoring the warning, she trudged with purpose through the damp, tangled grass, straight ahead, as if she knew exactly where she was going.
Lachlan hurried to catch up. He walked briskly beside her. “Raonaid…”
She continued to ignore him.
“Are you dreaming?” He studied her profile in the bluish light from the moon. “You need to wake up. You’re walking in your sleep.”
He hurried a few steps ahead of her, then turned to walk backwards in front, keeping a steady pace.
