Page 53 of What a Highlander’s Got to Do

“Your own fault,” her brother Andrew said with a smirk. “For staying up so late.”

“I had to. We were at a ball.” She glowered at each of them. “Where are your nurses?”

Alexia snorted. “We doona need nurses.”

“Aye,” her twin Alex crowed. “We’re perfectly behaved.”

Really? They were creatures from the bowels of hell. “Did you lock them in the water closet again?”

The twins blinked, quite innocently, and then smiled. It was an expression that sent shivers down Isobel’s spine. “Ach. You canna torment the servants. It’s no’ civilized.”

“You did, when you were our age,” her brother Lachlan reminded her.

“That was different,” she sputtered.

“I doona see how,” William said.

“We’re only following your lead,” Alexia added with a wicked grin.

Isobel sat up in bed and scraped her hair from her face. “I refuse to take the blame for your monstrous behavior.”

“At least we doona shoot arrows in the library,” Alexander said slyly.

“Perhaps we should,” Andrew, the elder, suggested.

Isobel frowned. “If you find a bow, do let me know. I may be needing one to survive this Season.”

Because they all thought she was referring to them, they laughed, throwing themselves onto her duvet and howling with delight. This continued until one of their nurses appeared at the door, looking frazzled and overwrought.

She gusted a sigh of relief and called down the hall, “I’ve found them.”

“Blast,” the Lachlans said beneath their breath.

As the nurses rounded up their charges, replete with apologies to Isobel, little Lileas took baby Magnus’s hand, and before they followed the others from the room, she whispered, “See you tomorrow.”

As the door closed behind them, sealing her into her private bower, Isobel flopped down on her pillows and covered her eyes with her arm.

After that there would be no more sleeping, but at the very least, the little monsters had distracted her from her agony over Nick’s duplicitous behavior. At least for a while.

In fact, somehow, when she thought of it, of him, it didn’t seem so bad.

She still had her family. She still had her life and who she was.

And somehow—she wasn’t sure exactly how, but felt certain it would come to her—she was going to make him pay.

If she ever saw him again.

* * *

Damnation.

When Nick woke up, it was past eleven.

He blamed it on the whisky. Or the fact that he’d lain awake all night thinking about seeing Isobel again, about not seeing her again. About what Tully had said.

Surely she had not been annoyed to learn his true status.

It had been humorous, amusing, and, yes, even a little gratifying that she’d thought him a stable hand . . . and still been interested in him.