Gwendolen regarded her with an arched brow as they walked side by side down the long corridor. “I am surprised you are defending him, considering how he treated you just now.”
Catherine, too, was surprised, for he had wounded her deeply. But it did not change the fact that he had delivered her to Kinloch Castle without incident, and he had kept his promise to her—that he would not endanger her life by slaking his lust on her.
“I cannot help myself,” she replied. “He did all that I asked of him.”
“Perhaps.” Gwendolen was quiet for a moment. “May I be frank with you, Lady Catherine?”
Catherine regarded her warily. “I wish you would be.”
The Lioness sighed. “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal, and Lachlan is…” She paused and glanced both ways, up and down the corridor. “He has a certain way about him. He is handsome, and women are drawn to him.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Gwendolen took a moment to better articulate herself. “His path is littered with broken hearts, and not just because of the curse. Even before that, he was not the kind of man a woman should ever fall in love with.” She hesitated. “I would not wish to see you hurt more than you have been already. It would be best if you returned to your home, and did not think of him again.”
Catherine’s stomach clenched tight with distress, for she feared it might be too late for such warnings. She might not be in love with Lachlan, but she was somehow swept away.
“Do not worry for me,” she said nonetheless. “I am not a fool.”
Yet she did not want him to leave the castle. She wanted—sheneeded—to see him again, though she did not want to explore too deeply the reasons why.
Gwendolen took hold of her hand. “I am pleased to hear it. Now let us deliver you to your bedchamber. You will need time to rest before dinner.”
***
After summoning Lachlan back to the solar, Angus spoke harshly. “So it appears you kidnapped the wrong woman. An heiress worth ten thousand English pounds. Bloody hell, Lachlan, I hope you covered your tracks.”
“I did,” he replied. “We spent the first night at a coaching inn to the south of Drumloch, then doubled back to the north and kept to the hills. And I did not kidnap her.”
Angus palmed the hilt of his sword. The air between them sizzled with tension. “I still want to thrash you senseless. For more than just what occurred here today.”
It was time, evidently, for Lachlan to pay the piper for what he did on that fateful morning a year ago.
At least he was ready. He had replayed, in his mind, the details of their contest a hundred times over.
“I won that fight fair and square,” he said. “You can call me a drunkard if you like, but the fact remains, you weren’t quick enough to block my maneuver, unsteady as it was. On the battlefield, you would be dead. And drunk or sober, I would be the victor.”
Lachlan and Angus had been cousins and friends since they were young lads, racing around the castle with wooden dirks in their belts, pretending to be warriors. As men they had continued their competitive games, using each other to practice and hone their skills for battle. They had always been equally matched, until that fateful day.
“Is that your way of apologizing?” Angus asked, eyes narrowing. “Or are you looking for another fight? Because I will gladly meet you in the Hall to even the score. Simply name the day and the hour.”
Lachlan regarded his cousin in the bright afternoon light shining through the windows, and felt a deep regret for all the days since his departure, knowing how he must have disappointed his chief, whom he respected more than any other Scotsman alive.
“I don’t want to fight you,” Lachlan replied. “I only want to tell you that I regret the day I rode away from here. It might have been a fair fight, but I should not have left, and you would be well within your rights to thrash me senseless. God knows I deserve it.”
“Aye, you do. You were my Laird of War, Lachlan.”
He lowered his gaze to the floor. “Not a very good one in those last few months. You were fortunate there were no unexpected attacks. I might have lost you your castle.”
Angus moved to a chair and sat down. He was quiet for a long time.
“What was your plan, coming back here?” He regarded Lachlan coolly. “Did you expect me to confirm that the heiress was actually Raonaid? Did you think I would force her to lift the curse, so that you could go back to your old life? Shagging lassies you barely knew?”
Lachlan looked toward the windows. “That would have been a simpler outcome.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But nothing seems simple now.”
Again he thought of Catherine, and wished he had been less cruel, from the first moment he found her in the stone circle.
“By coming here,” Angus continued, “you have dragged me into a very complicated hole. What I ought to do is turn your sorry arse over to the Lowland authorities and save myself from being implicated as your accomplice.”
